Sussex districts among the most peaceful places to live in the South East, according to new study

Wealden has been named the most peaceful place to live in the South East, while Horsham ranks fifth in the study.

The study, by property specialists SAM Conveyancing, scored every local authority in England and Wales on four measures that decide whether somewhere is genuinely peaceful to live in: how quiet it is at night, crime levels, how much publicly accessible green space residents have, and how close homes are to nightlife venues such as pubs, bars and clubs.

Night-time noise was measured at 37.7 million individual addresses using Defra's national noise maps, so the score reflects what residents are exposed to at their own front doors.

Taking first place is Wealden in East Sussex, with a peace score of 85.5 out of 100 and fifth place nationally. Its recorded crime rate of 41.1 offences per 1,000 residents is the seventh lowest in England and Wales, little more than half the national median of 71.1, and only 0.23 per cent of its residents live beside a cluster of licensed premises – the fourth lowest share of the 316 areas ranked, so a closing-time crowd is something almost nobody in the district lives with.

Bracknell Forest is second on 85.0 out of 100 and sixth nationally. It is about as far from a nightlife district as it is possible to get: 0.02 per cent of its residents live near a cluster of licensed premises, the third lowest share anywhere in England and Wales. Only 3.6 per cent of residents are exposed to night-time noise above 55 decibels, the level at which sleep is most commonly disrupted, compared to a national median of 6.3 per cent.

Hart in Hampshire takes third on 83.5 out of 100 and tenth nationally, with 71.9 square metres of green space per resident, the 17th most in England and Wales, and just 0.71 per cent of residents living beside a cluster of licensed premises.

South Oxfordshire is fourth on 82.0 out of 100. Its crime rate of 40.6 offences per 1,000 residents is the sixth lowest in England and Wales, and it has the ninth quietest nights in the region, with 4.1 per cent of residents exposed to noise above 55 decibels.

Horsham completes the regional top five on 80.1 out of 100 and 19th nationally, with the seventh lowest crime rate in the South East at 44.4 offences per 1,000 residents and only 1.07 per cent of residents living beside a cluster of licensed premises.

At the other end of the regional table, Portsmouth finishes 64th of 64 and 308th in England and Wales, on 6.9 out of 100. Some 71.2 per cent of its residents live with night-time noise above the 40 decibel guideline and 12.6 per cent exposed to noise above 55 decibels, it records 112.7 crimes per 1,000 residents, and 10.15 per cent of residents live beside a cluster of licensed premises.

Brighton & Hove is 63rd, with 21.43 per cent of residents living beside nightlife, and Southampton 62nd.

The South East is the largest region in the study and one of the strongest: 15 of its 64 authorities finish in the national top 50 and 29 in the top 100. Nationally, more than half the population of England and Wales – some 33 million people – live in homes exposed to night-time noise from roads or railways above the WHO's 40 decibel guideline, and 5.2 million are exposed to noise above 55 decibels.

Andrew Boast, CEO of SAM Conveyancing, said: “Buyers spend months on the things they can measure – the price, the survey, the school catchment – and almost no time on the thing they will notice on their first night in the house, which is how quiet it actually is. A Sunday afternoon viewing tells you very little about what a road sounds like at two in the morning, or what happens when the pub two streets away turns out.

“The encouraging thing is that this is all knowable before you commit. What the road carries at night, how close the nearest railway line is, what is licensed within a few hundred metres – that information is public, and it costs nothing to look at. Anyone moving home should be asking those questions before they exchange rather than after.”