England’s friendliest place has been revealed – and it is a three-hour ferry away from the mainland, but only home to around 2,300 people.
The Isles of Scilly, which are located 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall, have ranked the highest in new analysis of government data looking at social division across all 296 local authorities in England.
The National Conversation survey, which has been designed by the University of Oxford, asks participants to rate questions such as how lonely they feel, how many of their neighbours can be trusted and how proud they are of their local area.
Across the five inhabited islands, only three per cent said they felt lonely, 94.5 per cent said different backgrounds get on well and 88.8 per cent said they belonged to the neighbourhood and spoke to their neighbours at least monthly.
Other areas to make the top rankings for England include South Hams, West Devon, Derbyshire Dales and Richmond upon Thames.
Each of them had scored high figures among their residents for community cohesion and civic life.
Meanwhile, Barking and Dagenham ranked as the least friendliest place in England, with only 42.8 per cent expressing pride in their local area and 10.1 per cent saying they felt lonely.
The overall average across England for loneliness fell at 6.6 per cent.
Other areas that scored low on the index included Ipswich and Stoke-on-Trent as well as Mansfield.
The National Conversation survey is set to collect thousands of views that will inform a report later this year by the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, which is co-chaired by former Tory home secretary Sir Sajid Javid and former Labour policy co-ordinator Jon Cruddas.
Upon launching the project Sir Sajid said: Our country is in real peril. Unless we can regain a shared sense of what unites us – of what we have in common – we risk being torn apart by our differences.
“That vision won’t come from politicians – it can only come from the public.”
The study noted that it had been introduced at a “critical moment for Britain’s social fabric”, noting recent violent riots, attacks targeting migrant communities and declining trust in institutions.
Professor Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at Oxford Population Health, and lead investigator on the project, said: “There is an urgent need to understand how people across the UK are experiencing social change, trust, belonging, and community life.
“Much of the current debate relies on assumptions, fragmented polling, or political rhetoric. The National Conversation aims to provide a rigorous, evidence-based picture of what people are actually experiencing and feeling in their everyday lives.”
