Leigh
Town · 46,012 residents
65Good
Good · better than 5 in 10 towns
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- 61% of residents live within five minutes of a park
- Affordability scores 72, 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
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Leigh
Higher Fold Estate65Hooten Gardens59Hope Carr57Kirkhall LaneLilford53Pennington61Land Side57Firs Lane62Siddow CommonWood End58Butts59Plank Lane63
See all 19 in the guide ↓Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Leigh a good place to live?
Leigh scores 65/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for environment (82) and affordability (72).
Safety isn't scored here: street-level police data for the area is incomplete, so the overall score leaves it out.
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Leigh in North West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Leigh
Leigh's streets are mostly terraces and semis, the kind of solid brick housing stock that lines most former mill and mining towns across this stretch of the North West. Walk the centre and you'll see charity shops sitting next to bookmakers, a market hall history still visible in the layout, and the flat, practical look of a place that was built around work rather than views. It doesn't perform for visitors, and it isn't trying to.
That unpretentiousness shows up in the numbers too. Against Wigan, the wider borough Leigh sits within, property here comes in cheaper — the median house price runs meaningfully below the Wigan benchmark, and terraces and flats both sell for markedly less than the national going rate for the same property type. A typical sale is a leasehold terrace, reflecting the streets of Victorian and Edwardian rows that still make up most of the stock, though there's a reasonable spread of semis and detached homes too if you look. Schools follow a similar local logic: Leigh CofE Primary and Christ Church CofE Primary in Pennington both carry Good ratings, and if you want Outstanding you'd be looking toward Twelve Apostles Catholic Primary. Set against that, the secondary-level academic picture is softer than the Ofsted grades alone suggest — progress scores across the area sit below the national average, which is worth weighing if secondary schooling is a priority rather than assuming primary quality carries straight through.