Britain’s luckiest town and the top 20 most vulnerable freeholders.

Looking to move house but not 100% certain on your ideal town or city? Perhaps it may be worth considering Blackpool, which has recently been crowned as the luckiest town in Britain – and not just for the one armed bandits.

The achievement was awarded after a study of national bingo wins showed that residents of the Lancashire town, which is most famous for The Blackpool Tower and BlackpoolPleasureBeach, had won the national bingo competition at Mecca Bingo 22 times in total last year. These wins accumulate to a total of £156,000 in cash prizes.

However, if Blackpool is not for you, why not consider the towns that were runners up, including Stockton on Tees, Newport in South Wales, Glasgow or Wrexham.

Meanwhile, the M21 postcode of Manchester, which includes the towns of Chorlton-cum-Hardy (a name which looks like it should feature in another article in this month’s issue…) and Barlow Moor, has been labelled as the most vulnerable postcode for burglaries in Britain.

12 postcodes in London feature in the list of the top 20 most vulnerable areas, which has been formulated using figures from 3.1 million home insurance quotes submitted to moneysupermarket.com over a year.

The figures indicate that homeowners in the M21 postcode of Manchester are most likely to get burgled, with 45.2 insurance claims per 1000 people. The top 5 of the top 20 list are completed with areas all in London and consist of the postcodes, SE24, N10, RM8 and N2, with figures of 41.8, 40.9, 35.9 and 34.5 respectively.

However, Kevin Pratt of Moneysupermarket qualifies this:

“Just because somewhere is named a claim hotspot, it doesn’t actually mean the area in question is not a nice place to live…Thieves often target areas with wealthy residents and desirable properties”

Figures to be taken with a pinch of salt then, but as surveyors we always recommend our clients check out local crime rates before purchasing, along with internet speeds and flood zones as part of a series of checks that should of course always end with the professional advice of a Chartered Surveyor.

www.propertysurveying.co.uk

BT/SRJ