Manchester is the safest city in the UK, according to study

Ever felt a bit uneasy while walking alone in Manchester? Well, according to a new survey, Manchester is actually the safest city in the whole of the UK.

Who’d have thought it?

In what could perhaps be the boldest claim ever made, interior design magazine Homedit has revealed that Manchester came out on top in a ranking of the safety of cities across the country.

In order to accurately determine the safeness of each city, Homedit ranked them on six criteria: Crime rates per 1,000 residents, high flood risk, low flood risk, number of buildings covered by fire stations, number of buildings covered by hospitals, and street-light expenditure. 

@memoirsofamancunian / Instagram

And low and behold, Manchester came out on top, with it scoring an impressive 85 out of 100 safety points. 

Our city’s best criteria was the number of buildings within 2km of a fire station, receiving a score of 96.9%. However, Manchester’s lowest score is for its risk of low flooding to buildings, achieving a score of just 52.0% in this category. 

While the East Riding of Yorkshire snatched second place, a number of Greater Manchester boroughs remarkably also made the top ten list, with Stockport ranking in third place, Trafford in fourth, Wigan in seventh and Bury in joint tenth with Bristol and Croydon. 

Stockport’s best criteria is its low crime rate per 1,000 people – receiving a near-perfect 99.4%. However, its lowest score is for its risk of low flooding to buildings, achieving a measly score of 40.7%.

@mrwilliamo / Unsplash

Other areas to rank as the top ten safest are Cornwall, Birmingham and Coventry. The least safe areas, however, include Harlow, Pendle, Gravesham, Wyre Forest and Hyndburn. 

This comes just two weeks after Manchester was voted as the third best city in the world. Time Out launched its post-pandemic ‘Time Out Index’ survey back in March, which quizzed 27,000 city-dwellers with the aim to find out which cities had ‘really stepped up and pulled together’ during a year of worldwide pandemic – so it wasn’t just questions about food and culture, but also community projects, green space and sustainability.

Remarkably, Manchester ranked in third place, with us Mancunians being noted for our ‘resilience’ throughout the pandemic. Time Out’s summary read: “Mancunians are a very proud people, and so it’s no wonder 71 percent described the city as ‘creative’ in this year’s Index.”