Britain's debt hotspots revealed: The postcodes where residents owe the most and least money
04-10-2014
-
People living in the Bath postcode of BA1 9 owe the most per head in the country - a total of £2,311
-
Two fifths of Britain's mortgage debt is centred in London and the South East
By Rachel Rickard Straus
People living in the Bath postcode of BA1 9 owe an average of £2,311 in personal loans per head - the highest level in the UK.
They are closely followed by residents of EC1V 2, in north London, which covers parts of Islington. Here residents owe an average of £2,188, according to the figures from the British Bankers’ Association and the Council of Mortgage Lenders.
Owing money: Residents in some areas of Bath (pictured) have the highest average levels of personal debt in the country
The postcode sector of NE66 4, which covers parts of Alnwick, just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne came in third place, with people there owing £2,065 per person.
Postcodes in Peterborough, Leeds, Manchester and Preston were also in the ‘top 10’ list of where people owed the most in personal loans per head.
The two groups analysed lending data across more than 9,000 postcode sectors to reveal a detailed picture of how borrowing by people and businesses vary across the country.
They also found that one quarter of Britain’s £897billion mortgage debt is owed by people in London, at around £220billion, as house price growth continues to place the capital in a league of its own.
In comparison, just three per cent of mortgage debt is held in the North East, at £26billion.
Second highest: Residents in some parts of Islington (pictured) have some of the highest levels of debt at £2,188 per head
Mortgage debt of London and the South East combines comes in at £392billion – equating to over two-fifths of Britain’s total outstanding mortgage debt.
The figures, which are for the end of September 2013, do not include all banks and building societies. Those lenders which have participated cover about three-quarters of the mortgage market, three-fifths of bank lending to small and medium-sized businesses and three-fifths of personal loans.
The lenders that have contributed to the figures are Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, RBS Group, Santander and Clydesdale, Nationwide Building Society and Yorkshire Bank.
Personal loan figures were calculated by dividing the outstanding balance of personal loans in each postcode area by the number of adults resident. They exclude credit card debt, payday loans and mortgages.
The level of outstanding mortgage debt across different postcode sectors ranges from £664million in SW11 6 in south west London, which covers swathes of Battersea and Clapham, to IV48 8 in Inverness in Scotland, where a total of £633,183 is owed on mortgages.
Meanwhile the highest level of lending to small and medium businesses is in the postcode of N16 6 in north London, where SMEs owe a total of £177million.
Businesses in G69 8 in Glasgow have the lowest outstanding balance, at just £23,179.
The figures reveal regions outside London and the South East receive a higher proportion of borrowing than their share of turnover.
For example, London accounts for 21 per cent of Britain's SME lending, but a higher proportion of its turnover, at 29 per cent.
Meanwhile, Wales accounts for 5 per cent of Britain's SME lending but only around 3 per cent of its turnover. Scotland accounts for 8 per cent of SME lending, and around 6 per cent of turnover.
This is the second time that the quarterly data has been voluntarily published by banks and building societies, and coverage has increased since the first publication.
London has by far the highest level of outstanding mortgage debt, the BBA and CML figures show
BBA chief economist Richard Woolhouse said: ‘We've been working hard to make this data as accurate and comprehensive as possible and it now covers 96 per cent of lending to smaller businesses and 99 per cent of personal loans by postcode sector.
‘But this data is complex and it remains very difficult to draw firm conclusions about lending at a local level.
‘