What makes south Staffordshire so peaceful? We ask those who live there why

In a recent study by property specialists SAM Conveyancing, South Staffordshire was named as the most peaceful, ranking ahead of areas such as the Malvern Hills, Cannock Chase and Lichfield, and 17th across the UK, the only authority in the region to reach the national top 20.

The study scored every local authority in England and Wales on four measures that decide whether somewhere is genuinely peaceful to live in.

These included how quiet it is at night, crime levels, how much public green space residents have, and how close homes are to nightlife venues such as pubs, bars and clubs.

Additionally, night-time noise was measured at 37.7 million individual addresses using Defra's national noise maps, so the score reflected what residents were exposed to at their own front doors.

From the survey, South Staffordshire recorded a peace score of 80.7 out of 100, with a recorded crime rate of 50.8 offences per 1,000 residents being the third lowest in the West Midlands and the 44th lowest in England and Wales.

It also found that residents had 55.2 square metres of green space each, the 36th most in the country, and only 1.65 per cent lived beside a cluster of licensed premises.

But what do people who live in the area think? What is it about the area, which includes villages such as Codsall, Codsall Wood, Wombourne, Enville and Kinver, that makes it so peaceful for them?

At the Bull in Codsall, staff member Laura said she had grown up in the village and said it was a place with a community feeling and a nice comfortable place to be.

She said: “I think this place is a lovely place to grow up in as I grew up around here and I've worked here for years as well, and I think there's a great sense of community, especially in the local businesses and the people just know each other.

“It has a bit of a village mentality, even though we're growing now and there's lots of houses and stuff and more people coming into the area and, day by day, we see loads of new faces, which is nice.

“Codsall itself has got a lot to offer, being a vibrant place at night and weekends and I think there's loads of community groups that go on as well for all ages.

“It’s also a very nice place to live in and one of the best places in the Midlands as it’s very nice, calm and peaceful, and we tend to like be a very local community where everyone knows each other.

“That’s the same with this pub as even if it’s just a single person, they can come and have a chat with everybody as everyone integrates very well, so I always think it's a lovely place.”

Down the road at Cue and Dart World, staff member Maz said he agreed that the area was peaceful, saying that the community was very friendly.

He said: “I would say the people are very friendly, very outgoing and nice to talk to and it's just a peaceful place to be with a good atmosphere as well.

”It helps us as well being friendly and peaceful as the business that we have here is well established as well.

“Generally, I think the people in this area are very, very friendly and they are really approachable talk and a happy bunch.”