South Woodford
Neighbourhood · 13,145 residents
65Good
Good · better than 7 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
- Less recorded crime than is typical: 73 per 1,000 people a year against 100
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- Prices are high for local incomes: affordability scores 30, where 60 is typical
- Road noise reaches 73% of the area
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around South Woodford
Map outline: Approximate — electoral ward boundary, used as the nearest surveyed shape
Is South Woodford a good place to live?
South Woodford scores 65/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (72).
It scores lowest on affordability (30).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for South Woodford in London, each measured against the national average.
Summary of South Woodford
South Woodford's high street has the look of a place that's comfortable without trying too hard: chain coffee shops sitting next to independent estate agents, blocks of flats above the shopfronts, and a steady flow of people who clearly work in central London but come home to something quieter. It's dense for a suburb, more so than most of the country, and that shows in the mix of mansion blocks and converted houses rather than sprawling gardens.
The Underground station is the anchor here, putting central London within reach without a change, and that single fact shapes who moves in — a lot of professionals in their late thirties, commuting out during the week and reclaiming the area at weekends. Schools add to the picture: Churchfields Infants' School carries an Outstanding rating, and the presence of Snaresbrook Prep alongside it tells you this is a place where people plan around education, not just transport. Housing here is dominated by flats, most of them leasehold, and a For Sale board is far more likely to read "two-bed conversion" than "family semi" — although the semis and terraces that do come up sell at prices well above the national picture for those types, a sign of how tight the wider stock has become. At a median of £456,000, buying here costs less than the Redbridge average and considerably less than the London-wide figure, though it's still well above the national median, which puts South Woodford in the fairly comfortable middle of the capital's affordability range rather than at either extreme.