Introducing WhereToSettle - know your neighbourhood before you move

Moving to a new neighbourhood is one of the biggest decisions most of us will ever make. Yet for many people, the research amounts to a Sunday afternoon walkabout and a quick scan of sold prices on Rightmove. That gut feel matters - but it rarely tells the full story.

What's crime like after dark? How are the nearby schools rated? How long would the commute actually be? These questions take hours to answer piecemeal, scattered across a dozen different websites and government portals.

That's why we built WhereToSettle.

What WhereToSettle shows you

Type in any UK postcode and you get an interactive map loaded with the data that actually matters when you're choosing where to live:

• CrimeRecorded incidents mapped across your area, filterable by category, so you can tell a vehicle-theft hotspot from a genuinely low-crime street.
• SchoolsNearby primaries and secondaries plotted on the map, with Ofsted ratings and pupil numbers, so you can see what's accessible at a glance.
• House pricesSold prices from HM Land Registry give a real picture of what properties have actually changed hands for - not just asking prices.
• DemographicsONS Census 2021 data on population, age groups, and household types, so you can understand the character of an area before you commit to it.
• TransportCommute time estimates and public transport links so you can judge how practical day-to-day life will be.

Built on UK open data

Every dataset we use comes from UK government open data: the Police Data API, HM Land Registry, the Department for Education, the Office for National Statistics, and Ordnance Survey. We don't create the data - we make it usable in one place, without the spreadsheets.

One caveat worth knowing: crime data is published roughly two months after the incident date. That's a government publication lag, not something we control - and the map always shows you a “data as of” date so you know exactly what you're looking at.

Give it a try

Whether you're a first-time buyer scoping out a new city, a renter comparing two shortlisted postcodes, or simply curious about your current neighbourhood - WhereToSettle is free to use and takes about thirty seconds to get started.

Search your postcode. See what's really around you.