Gera Area Value Score — methodology

The five inputs

• Affordability — HM Land Registry average house price per local authority.
• Rent value — ONS median monthly private rent per local authority.
• Safety — Home Office recorded crime per 1,000, by police force area, attributed to each authority via its territorial force.
• Schools — Ofsted % of state schools rated Good or Outstanding, by education authority (county-level figures attributed to their districts).
• Connectivity — Ofcom % of premises gigabit-capable per local authority.
• Council tax — MHCLG Band D council tax is joined and shown as running-cost context, but is not weighted into the headline score.

The area-code join

The primary key is the ONS GSS local-authority code (E06 unitary, E07 district, E08 metropolitan, E09 London), shared by house prices, rent, council tax and broadband. Two cross-level joins are needed and are documented geographic containments, not estimates:

• Crime → authority. Recorded crime is published per police force area. Every authority is policed by exactly one territorial force, so it inherits that force's recorded-crime rate. The force is named on every page.
• Schools → authority. Ofsted is published per education authority. A two-tier shire district's schools are administered by its county education authority, so the district inherits the county's Good+ percentage. The education authority is named on every page.

Coverage: 287 English local authorities resolve to a real value for all five inputs and are ranked. Any authority missing an input is dropped, never scored on a null.

Normalisation and weights

Each input is min-max normalised to 0–100 across all 287 ranked areas:

sub_score = 100 × (value − min) / (max − min)
  # inverted (cheaper / safer = higher) for: house price, rent, crime
  # direct  (more = higher)               for: Ofsted Good+, gigabit %

GAVS = Σ (sub_score_i × weight_i) / Σ weight_i

Default weights (overall ranking):

• Affordability (house price): 25%
• Rent value: 20%
• Safety (low crime): 20%
• Schools (Ofsted Good+): 20%
• Connectivity (gigabit): 15%

Each named ranking page (best-value, family-value, first-time-buyer, commuter-belt) applies its own published weight vector, and the interactive finder lets a visitor set their own.

Worked example — Warrington

Warrington is the #1 area under the default weights. Its real figures: average home £253,219, median rent £885/mo, crime 66.9/1,000 (Cheshire), 100% Good+ Ofsted (Warrington), 92.6% gigabit. National medians for reference: home £305,174, rent £1,072/mo, crime 75.2/1,000, schools 88%, gigabit 85%.

Affordability (house price)  sub-score  89.1  × weight  25%
Rent value                   sub-score  89.3  × weight  20%
Safety (low crime)           sub-score  78.2  × weight  20%
Schools (Ofsted Good+)       sub-score 100.0  × weight  20%
Connectivity (gigabit)       sub-score  91.2  × weight  15%
Gera Area Value Score (Warrington) = 89.5 / 100  →  rank 1 of 287

Freshness and honesty

The composite is re-dated when its inputs refresh (the slowest-moving update quarterly); last re-dated 19 June 2026. Recorded-crime rates are neutral official statistics and must not be used to characterise an area or its residents. No figure on these pages is estimated or invented — only the join and the composite are Gera's.