Chells

Terraced streets dominate here, red-brick and post-war, with the kind of density that tells you this is Stevenage's residential engine rather than its showpiece. Walk round and you'll see family cars parked tight along the kerb, hedges kept neat, the occasional extension — this is a place people settle into rather than pass through.

The numbers back up that read. A median age of 38.8 and a dominant terraced-freehold mix (most of the 73 recent sales were terraces, almost all freehold) point to established households rather than a churn of renters or first-time flat-buyers — there's barely a flat to be found. Housing itself sits a touch below the Stevenage average and close to the national median, so you're not paying a premium to be here, though the five-year price trend has been flat rather than rising. Schools are a genuine strength: Camps Hill Primary and Marriotts School both carry Good ratings, and the area's overall schools grade is the standout mark on the report card, well ahead of everything else on offer.

That contrast matters, because safety and health are the softer spots. The area's safety grade sits respectably above the national average and is trending in the right direction, but violence and sexual offences still make up nearly half of recorded crime, with anti-social behaviour a clear second — a pattern worth sitting with rather than dismissing, even as the overall trajectory improves. Health is marked more modestly too, a reminder that this is a working, lived-in suburb rather than a wellness destination. On the upside, green space is generous for a place this dense — sixteen pockets of parkland totalling nearly 71 hectares, well above the national rate per head — so there's room to walk a dog or let kids run that the terraced streets themselves don't offer. Fibre broadband reaches most homes, useful if your "commute" is now upstairs.