Cowley Hill
Suburb · 2,367 residents
62Good
Good · better than 6 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
- 9 GP practices within a short walk
- 23 places to eat and drink
- Affordability scores 77, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
- Safety scores 36, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Cowley Hill
Map outline: Approximate — no official boundary exists for this neighbourhood
Is Cowley Hill a good place to live?
Cowley Hill scores 62/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for health (94) and food & drink (78).
It scores lowest on safety (36).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Cowley Hill in North West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Cowley Hill
Terraced streets dominate Cowley Hill, row after row of them, with the odd semi breaking the pattern — this is a tightly packed, close-set suburb rather than a place of driveways and gaps between houses, and the population density here (well over 4,000 people per square kilometre, against a national average closer to 2,600) tells you how little space sits between one front door and the next.
The practical picture is a mixed one. Terraced houses dominate sales, most of them leasehold rather than freehold, and a typical sale price sitting around £121,000 puts this firmly among the most affordable corners of the country — nearly a third below the figure for St. Helens as a whole, and a fraction of the national median. Council tax, at a Band D figure close to the national norm, won't feel like a bargain by comparison, but the entry cost to actually buy here is the real story. On schooling, Holy Cross Catholic Primary School carries a Good rating, and families have a choice of other primaries in the area, though secondary options aren't part of the picture here — this reads as a place for younger families rather than one geared around older children's schooling. Twenty transport stops serve the area, which speaks to a suburb built around buses and short local journeys rather than rail commuting.
Green space is modest but present — nine separate spaces covering a little over 15 hectares, enough for a regular dog walk or a kickabout rather than anything sprawling. The area's strongest grades are around health and environment, both well above the national average, and nightlife also scores strongly, suggesting a suburb with decent local pubs and amenities rather than one that empties out after dark. Safety is the outlier in that pattern, and it's worth sitting with: the crime rate runs markedly higher than the St. Helens average, with violence and sexual offences accounting for over four in ten recorded incidents — the single largest category by some distance. The direction of travel is described as improving, which matters, but the current level is the thing to weigh seriously against the otherwise warm picture elsewhere.