To help these new green advocates and garden lovers, we analysed the UK’s 25 largest cities by population figures, to determine the most ‘gardener-friendly’ locations for renters, and their newfound gardening skills. The analysis used several criteria points to score each of the cities against which we then used to work out an overall rank for each city.

Ranked: The UK’s 25 major cities for garden and green lovers

Gardener friendly cities for renters

Our research reveals that Wolverhampton is the UK’s most gardener friendly city for renters, performing well across all areas, particularly for the number of garden centres and open fields per 100,000 of their population.

Newport and Manchester made up the rest of the top three ‘gardener friendly’ cities in the UK for renters, coming in second and third place, respectively. Derby and Coventry came in close behind, ranking at fourth and fifth position.

Ranking factors include percentage of available rentals with a garden, terrace or balcony, and the number of allotments, garden centres and parks or fields per 100,000 people in the populations.

Methodology

Our methodology involved analysing existing data and reputable sources.

The UK’s 25 major cities by population figures were analysed and the below four criteria points were analysed for each city:

• Percentage of rental properties with a garden, terrace, or balcony – this data was pulled from Zoopla’s website search feature.
• Number of allotments per 100,000 people – this data was taken from council websites and are therefore inclusive of council run allotments only.
• Number of garden centres in the area per 100,000 people – this data was taken from Yell’s search feature.
• Number of fields/parks per 100,000 people – these were all taken from Field In Trust’s website of fields they protect.

Each of the cities were then ranked for each of the above criteria points, before an average rank across all aspects gave the final ranking number known as the ‘overall index number’. Desk research sources for each criterion is available on request.

Data sources are as follows:

• zoopla.co.uk
• Individual Council websites
• yell.com
• fieldsintrust.org/fields

About the author

Mike Stephens is a respected senior industry professional and Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) with well over 40 years’ varied experience in the commercial insurance sector as a director, underwriter, and operational improvement manager.

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