The Royal Borough, home to some of the world’s most expensive houses and wealthiest people, edges out Dudley in the West Midlands and Poole in Dorset for having the safest houses in England and Wales.
Householders in Doncaster however have the riskiest houses ahead of near neighbours in Sheffield and Nottingham.
Virgin Money Home Insurance researchers rated the major towns and cities in England and Wales to find where the safest homes as ranked by risks of criminal damage, burglary and flooding and levels of protection from Neighbourhood Watch schemes, as well as numbers of police officers.
Cities and towns were allocated points which were weighted to reflect population. The degree of risk with London boroughs were also rated separately.
Kensington & Chelsea performed well across all criteria but scored particularly because of the low levels of criminal damage and because it faces limited flood risks. Burglary risk however was relatively high in the borough.
Doncaster, Sheffield and Nottingham all suffer from relatively higher risks of criminal damage and burglary while also facing increased flood risk, the research shows. The tables below show the safest and riskiest areas in England and Wales.
SAFE AS HOUSES RANKING 1 Kensington & Chelsea - 2 Dudley - 3 Poole - 4 Brighton & Hove - 5 Wandsworth 6 - Lewisham - 7 City of Westminster - 8 Hackney - 9 Tower Hamlets - 10 Southend
HOUSE RISKS RANKING - 43 Doncaster - 42 Nottingham - 41 Sheffield - 40 Middlesbrough - 39 Hull - 38 Manchester - 37 Reading - 36 Rotherham - 35 Leeds - 34 Bristol
Grant Bather, spokesman at Virgin Money, said: “It really is a case of safe as houses in Kensington & Chelsea as well as Poole and Dudley. The criteria we have used helped to provide a guide as to how safe houses rather than people are.
“That doesn’t of course mean that Doncaster or Nottingham or Sheffield are unsafe or dangerous but it does help show that there are higher risks in those areas when it comes to a range of issues. There is no need to have nightmares.
“Householders can take action to improve the safety of their houses with simple steps such as improving locks and installing burglar alarms as well as getting home insurance for peace of mind. In the current economic downturn it makes sense to save money by shopping around for insurance but not by cutting the quality of insurance.”
Nottingham and Manchester had the highest proportion of burglaries while Poole and Swindon had the lowest proportion of burglaries.
