Chief of police UK's preferred neighbour

Concern over crime and anti-social behaviour makes the ‘Chief of Police’ more popular choice of neighbour than Cheryl Cole

Half the UK population would rather live next door to a police chief than their favourite celebs

28 April 2010

Posted in Financial results

Cheryl Cole and David Beckham are the celeb neighbours of choice (48% and 44% respectively)
John Terry and Peter Mandelson come in bottom of the pile
A third of us would prefer not to live next to any of the prime ministerial candidates

Concern over crime and anti-social behaviour has reached boiling point with half the population now wishing they had the Chief of Police as their next door neighbour, according to new research¹ released as part of AXA Home Insurance's Community Challenge.

Almost a third of the UK population believes that anti-social behaviour needs to be tackled by any new government as this (71%), crime (66%), immigration (59%) and unemployment (51%) have contributed to the breakdown of today's society.

Having good neighbours is important - over 10% cite knowing neighbours well as a key issue within local communities. AXA's Community Challenge has been launched to help find the real, number one community in the UK.

Celebrity neighbours of choice

Cheryl Cole and David Beckham are the two stars that most people would like to live next door to, according to the new research commissioned by AXA Home Insurance.

And while the research, which was completed just before the first leadership debate, showed that most of us would prefer not to live next door to any of the prime ministerial candidates, if we did have to choose, it seems that David Cameron comes out on top.

When it comes to soap stars, Hayley and Roy Cropper top the preferential neighbour charts (11%), followed by Paddy Kirk (9%), Dot Cotton (7%), Corrie's Eileen Grimshaw, Jack Duckworth and The Queen Vic's Peggy Mitchell (all with 5%).

The perfect neighbourhood would consist of the following people:

Chief of Police (50%)
Cheryl Cole (48%)
David Beckham (44%)
Beyonce (35%)
The Queen (33%) = A Judge (33%)
David Cameron (31%)
Ryan Giggs (28%)
Lily Allen (25%)
The chief executive of Tesco (23%)
Archbishop of Canterbury (22%)

John Terry and Peter Mandelson come in bottom of the pile with just 7% and 6% respectively of the public wanting them on their street.

Commenting on these results, Amanda Edwards from AXA Home Insurance says, “It's clear to see that community remains an important issue in today's modern society, with concerns over the impact crime and anti-social behaviour is having.

“Over the next six months we are hoping to find the number one community in the UK and what makes it so great. It is really interesting to see what individuals the public think would make up the perfect street.”

¹ Research carried out by One Poll between 11-13^th April 2010 amongst 2003 UK adults.

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AXA UK is part of the AXA Group, a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 147,000 employees serving 94 million clients in 50 countries. In 2023, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 102.7 billion and underlying earnings to Euro 7.6 billion. AXA had Euro 844 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2023.

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