Perspectives on Place: what the English think about their local area

Abstract

This briefing summarises findings from a survey conducted by YouGov in England in September 2025 which sought to measure and track how people view their local area (relative to other areas and the past) and understand the connection between those perceptions of place (and place-based attitudes towards government and politics) and material conditions – measured across a range of domains (e.g. crime, high streets, housing, health). The survey interviewed 2,610 adults online in England between 18 and 19 September 2025. It also asked about what people thought the most important issue was locally, what specific improvement(s) might make places better, prioritisation between growing the economy as a whole vs improving ‘left behind’ areas, and support for a range of proposals to tackle policy issues (such as on transport, high streets, education and skills). The survey included a number of items that previously had been fielded in surveys by UK in a Changing Europe (with KCL) and the Centre for the South at the University of Southampton in 2022 and 2024 respectively. This enables us to determine how perceptions of place have changed over the past three years, and in particular since Labour took office in July 2024. Our data also enables us to link respondents to contextual data at constituency or local authority level (e.g. English Indices of Deprivation), such as on crime, health, housing or employment outcomes, so that we can determine if people’s perceptions of their area correspond to objective measures of conditions or outcomes