Olton

Olton's streets are dominated by semi-detached houses with bay windows and hedged front gardens, the kind of solid inter-war stock that suggests families who've been here a while rather than a churn of renters. There's a settled, slightly formal feel to it — this isn't a place with a buzzing strip of bars, and it doesn't pretend to be. The median age sits a little above the national figure, and walking the roads near the station you get the sense of a suburb that people move to and then stay in.

That settled character shows up in the numbers too. Olton sits in the eighth decile for deprivation, meaning it's among the less deprived places nationally, and the median house price of £346,000 lands almost exactly on the national average but sits a shade above the wider Solihull borough. Semi-detached freehold homes make up the bulk of sales here, and that detached-versus-semi split in the price data — detached houses fetching well over the national norm, semis doing the same — tells you a For Sale board on an Olton street is selling a family upgrade, not a starter flat. Schools-wise, Olton Primary School carries a Good Ofsted rating, and with a rail station in the area, this reads as a place for someone who wants a solid commuter base without central-Birmingham prices. Safety is genuinely a strength — the area grades top marks there — though it sits oddly alongside a weaker health grade and a nightlife grade that makes clear this isn't where you come for an evening out.