The London borough where 79% of residents don't trust their neighbours

Having a chitchat with your neighbour at the front door and feeling like a part of your community can hugely depend on where you live.

And it’s these factors that can influence how friendly our local area feels. Well, the numbers have been crunched, and the least friendly – and, technically the loneliest – place to live in London has been named.

It’s bad news for Barking and Dagenham, which came last out of all the London Boroughs – and 296th out of 296 local authorities across England, according to government survey The National Conversation.

It received an overall score of just eight out of 100 when it came to connection, with a major factor being that 10.1% of locals report more frequent loneliness than almost anywhere in England, where the average is 6.6%.

Furthermore, just 42.8% of residents were proud to live in Barking and Dagenham, lower than the 59.7% England average, and a measly 21.1% felt they could trust their neighbours.

Even less (10.9%) admitted to formally volunteering at least once a month in their local community.

This isn’t the first blow for the London borough. It was branded the ‘least happy’ in London after coming in 33rd place, according to Rightmove’s Happy At Home Index for 2025.

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Things weren’t, and hopefully won’t always be, so bleak in Barking and Dagenham. In the middle of the 19th century, Barking was actually Britain’s most important fishing port.

And in 2021, the nation’s biggest wholesale fish market, Billingsgate, moved in alongside New Smithfields and Spitalfields.

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The relocation of these iconic markets has slowly led the way towards a total transformation of the area, alongside the addition of the Uber Boat by Thames Clippers pier, and the opening of an Overground station in 2022.

Plus, things are definitely on the up in Dagenham, as Crowlands Heath Golf Course is set to be demolished to make way for 1,300 new homes, accompanied by new infrastructure and sports facilities.

The plans cover approximately 24.13 hectares of land that straddles the boundary between Havering Council and Barking and Dagenham.

There’s also Barking Riverside, a development which was delivered as a joint project by L&Q and the Mayor of London, and saw the construction of more than 2,000 new homes amid 443 acres of green space.

According to one report, 41% of these are affordable, which means that they’re offered at below market value (whether renting or for sale).

It’s worth noting that Barking and Dagenham has some of the worst socio-economic challenges in the entirety of London.

According to the 2021 Census, 46,100 households in the borough (a staggering 62.4%) were deprived in at least one of the following areas: education, employment, health and housing.

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These statistics place Barking and Dagenham as having the most deprivation not just in London, but across the whole of England.

In fact, according to the Indices of Deprivation 2025, its more deprived than 87% of England’s local authorities.

With this in mind, local @Leodome said over in the r/HousingUK Subreddit that while ‘most of Barking town centre is shabby,’ it’s ‘aesthetically not bad, consisting mostly of pre-1960s redbrick buildings.’

‘The station is hideous, but the transport links are excellent. The market area is really lively, and the water isn’t far, which is a very nice bonus that most areas of London don’t have,’ they penned.

Meanwhile, @donald_cheese has lived there for five years, and previously said that while it has its flaws, it’s got ‘excellent transport links and buses.’

‘There are usually loads of people milling about. Loads of really good kebabs,’ they wrote.

According to Rightmove, the average house price in Barking and Dagenham over the past year is £428,908, considerably below the London average of £658,016.

Lasy year, the IG11 postcode in Barking and Dagenham was identified as the cheapest postcode in the capital for property, while £59,600 was revealed as the salary needed to buy a house in the borough – one of the lowest in London.

House prices in Dagenham over the last year were 17% up on the previous year and and 16% up on the 2023 peak of £369,789.

This article was originally published in December 2025 and has been updated.

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