Birkwood Common
Suburb · 46 residents
59Good
Good · better than 5 in 10 suburbs
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- Affordability scores 76, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Flood risk: 27% of the area is in the highest flood zone, so check the street
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
- Road noise reaches 78% of the area
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Birkwood Common
Map outline: Approximate — no official boundary exists for this neighbourhood
Is Birkwood Common a good place to live?
Birkwood Common scores 59/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for affordability (76).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Birkwood Common in Yorkshire and The Humber, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Birkwood Common
Rows of terraced brick, front doors opening straight onto the pavement, the odd semi breaking up the streetscape — Birkwood Common has the settled, unfussy look of a Wakefield district village that never quite became a commuter suburb. It's a small place, just over five hundred people, and the sense you get walking through is of a community that's been here a while rather than one that's arriving.
The numbers back that up. A median age in the mid-forties, well above the national average, tells you this isn't a starter-home magnet — it's a place people settle into and stay. Housing here is overwhelmingly terraced and freehold, and the prices are the real story: a median sale around £155,000, some 20% below the Wakefield borough figure and less than half the national median. For a first buyer or someone downsizing without wanting a mortgage that bites, that affordability is the headline, and it's reflected in the area's top-tier affordability grade. Schooling has a genuine bright spot in Lee Brigg Infant and Nursery School, rated Outstanding, though public transport is thin — just a couple of stops recorded locally, so this reads as a driving village rather than a rail one.
Crime is the one figure that needs a level head. The area logs a crime rate more than four times the Wakefield average, and violence and sexual offences alone account for around two in five recorded incidents — a concentration that stands out against an otherwise unremarkable, even reassuring, grade profile (safety sits at a middling B while connectivity and transport score B+). It's worth reading that stark parent comparison in context: Birkwood Common is a small population base, so a modest number of incidents can swing a rate dramatically, and the borough figure it's being measured against is itself low. Still, it's the one number in this file that doesn't match the rest of the picture, and it deserves a proper look rather than a shrug. On the gentler side, green space provision runs ahead of both the regional and national averages per head, and full-fibre broadband coverage is strong at over 90%, so working from home here is a realistic, well-connected option even if the train station isn't on your doorstep.