London’s least friendly neighborhood named: see how yours fares

The National Conversation has dug into government data to work out the most and least friendly places in the UK.

Want the headline-grabber? Barking and Dagenham is the bottom of the pile according to the data, scoring a measly 8/100 points.

This is based on The National Conersation’s connection barometer, which is based on questions like how much someone feels like they belong to their neighbourhood, whether they are proud of their local area and whether people from different backgrounds get on.

Let’s cut to the chase and run down the top five best and worst scorers:

The bad list

1. Barking and Dagenham
2. Stoke-on-Trent
3. Ashfield
4. Mansfield
5. Ipswich

The good list

1. The Isles of Scilly
2. South Hams
3. West Devon
4. The Derbyshire Dales
5. Richmond upon Thames

You can see what score your own area gets over at the National Conversation website.

All this data comes from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government survey and statistics info. But part of this attention-grabbing presentation of the data by the National Conversation is to get us to fill in the initiative’s own survey.

It’s operated by the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, which is part of the University of Oxford.

“Your participation will help create one of the few resources where people can see how their area feels, not just how it votes,” is the pitch.

But what are they gong to do with it? The stated aim is to “conduct academic research and analyse societal trends,” which it deems are in the “public interest.”

Whether you want to participate or not, it’s kinda interesting to dig into the data of your current and previous home towns.

The primary source is the Community Life Survey 2024/25 — which was undertaken between October 2024 and March 2025, and includes answers from upwards of 175,000 participants aged 16+, from across the UK.

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