Squirrels Heath
Neighbourhood · 16,017 residents
73Very good
Very good · better than 9 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: 61 per 1,000 people a year against 100
- 100% of schools are rated Good or better by Ofsted
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- Prices are high for local incomes: affordability scores 39, where 60 is typical
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Squirrels Heath
Map outline: Approximate — electoral ward boundary, used as the nearest surveyed shape
Is Squirrels Heath a good place to live?
Squirrels Heath scores 73/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as very good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (78) and schools (75).
It scores lowest on affordability (39).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Squirrels Heath in London, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Squirrels Heath
Squirrels Heath reads as suburban semis and inter-war housing stock, the kind of streets where a Saturday car-clean is a legitimate hobby and the pavements are wide enough for double buggies. It attracts a settled, middle-aged crowd rather than a young rental churn — the median age sits at 40, right on the national average, and the density here is double the England-wide norm without ever feeling like inner London. This is Havering, not Hackney, and it looks it.
The practical picture hangs together well. Gidea Park Rail Station anchors the area for commuters, and with 18 transport stops scattered around, getting to a train or bus is rarely the problem — the connectivity grade backs that up. Schools are a genuine strength: Ardleigh Green Infant and Junior Schools both carry Outstanding ratings, and The Royal Liberty School posts a Progress 8 score of 0.47, comfortably ahead of typical secondary performance. A family here can plausibly walk a child to an Outstanding primary and commute out on the same morning. Housing leans toward flats as the single most-traded type, though houses dominate by volume once you add semis, terraces and detached together, and freehold ownership accounts for over two-thirds of sales — this is still fundamentally a house-owning suburb, not a leasehold block estate. At a median of £373,750, it undercuts the Havering borough average by a noticeable margin and sits close to the English median, so a "for sale" board here is more likely to read "£470,000, three-bed semi" than anything glossy.