Old Town
Village · 22 residents
70Very good
Very good · better than 8 in 10 villages
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- Food & drink scores 98, well above the typical 60
- Less recorded crime than is typical: 45 per 1,000 people a year against 100
- Health scores 77, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Property market scores 36, below the typical 60
- Infrastructure scores 37, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Old Town a good place to live?
Old Town scores 70/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as very good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for food & drink (98) and safety (89).
It scores lowest on property market (36) and infrastructure (37).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Old Town in South West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Old Town
Old Town doesn't look like much of a town at all — a scatter of houses across a small patch of the Isles of Scilly, with barely three dozen people calling it home and a density you'd more likely associate with a hamlet than anywhere urban. This is about as far from a commuter suburb as England gets, and it feels that way the moment you arrive: quiet lanes, sea air, and a population whose median age sits a decade above the national norm.
There's no rail station here, unsurprisingly, and only a couple of transport stops to speak of — you get around Old Town on foot, by boat, or not at all, and that's the whole point of choosing it. The Five Islands Academy, rated Good with a strongly positive progress score, is the one school in view, an all-through academy that suggests families do stay and settle rather than passing through. Housing sold recently has skewed toward flats and terraces on freehold terms, with a median price of £265,000 — comfortably below the national and regional medians, though the sample here is small enough that one or two sales swing the picture. That discount holds against the Isles of Scilly benchmark too, where property here runs about 12% cheaper than the unitary authority as a whole.
Life outside the front door is where the place earns its grades. Health and nightlife both score at the top of the scale, safety too, and schooling isn't far behind — the sort of pattern that points to a genuinely settled, well-regarded community rather than a statistical fluke. Crime sits at a single recorded incident in the past year, so low that the year-on-year comparison to the mainland-heavy parent authority looks enormous in percentage terms and means little in practice — it's the raw quiet, not the maths, that matters. The one place Old Town doesn't dazzle is connectivity: broadband and full-fibre coverage sit mid-table, a reminder that island life still means some trade-offs even now. Housing itself grades only modestly too, likely a function of the older stock and limited choice rather than any real problem with what's on offer.