Groundsense Built 26 September 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026 · Worked example

East Dulwich against Exeter

A plan for one household, comparing where they are now with where they are considering.

Read this first

Every figure below is real. Fetched from the named source on 26 and 27 September and 3 October 2026 and reproducible. Nothing is illustrative and nothing is invented. Where a figure is missing, it says so rather than being filled in.

The household is not. There is no questionnaire behind this one. The priorities in section 3 are an assumption, stated openly, so the shape of a plan can be tested before there is a real buyer to test it on.

It was written by hand, before plans built themselves. Since 4 October 2026 a plan is built by software the moment it is paid for, from the same sources and in the same sections. The one difference is section 1: in place of a written verdict, it sets out where each place is better and worse than where you live now on your own three things. See a plan exactly as one is built today.

The household, as assumed: a couple in their late thirties, currently SE22 8HP, one child due to start primary within two years, both able to work remotely three days a week. Considering EX4 4QJ.

or download the one we made
1

The verdict

Exeter is measurably more comfortable and measurably less proven on the things you would only find out after moving. On deprivation the gap is not close: EX4 4QJ sits in a neighbourhood less deprived than 96.7% of England, against 47.3% where you are now.

The single biggest thing in favour is the doctors. Every rated GP practice in Exeter is Good or Outstanding, five of them Outstanding, against 88% here, where Southwark has none Outstanding and three that require improvement. School capacity is second: nineteen open schools in EX4 against eleven in SE22, including two sixth forms where SE22 has none.

The single biggest thing against is that it costs more to be there. Council tax, water and energy together come to £685.10 a year higher, which is £57.09 a month before travel is counted and it is the opposite of what leaving London is supposed to do. Second to that, Exeter's schools are fuller: 87.8% of capacity against 82.0%, so more schools is not the same as more room in them.

We would not rule either out on this evidence and we want to be plain that this is not a compliment. Two of the things that would decide it are missing rather than neutral: no catchment distances and no Ofsted grades. A third, the rest of your monthly outgoings, is now partly answered and partly not. Section 6 says what to do about each.

2

The money

Being this household in Exeter costs £685.10 a year more. That is £57.09 a month and it is still a floor rather than a total, because travel is missing.

This is the opposite of what most people expect from leaving London. It is also the most checkable set of numbers in this plan, so check them.

Running cost, a year East DulwichWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Council tax, band D East Dulwich£1,967.26 Exeter£2,495.36More+£528.10
Water and sewerage, average for the supplier £658Thames Water £740More+£82South West Water
Energy, modelled running cost for a median home £93370m² median · £13.57/m² · 200 homes £1,008Similar+£7577m² median · £14.11/m² · 198 homes
What we can total so far £3,558.26 £4,243.36More+£685.10£57.09 a month

MHCLG Council Tax levels 2026-27 Table 9 · Water UK via Discover Water 2026-27 · MHCLG Energy Certificate Data API, random sample across each postcode district · read 26 and 27 Sep and 3 Oct 2026

On the water figure. It is the average household combined water and sewerage bill for the whole of each company’s area. A metered bill depends on what you use and an unmetered one on rateable value, so this compares two areas honestly and does not predict your bill.

On the energy figure, which is a draw. It is the median modelled running cost, heating plus hot water plus lighting, of 200 homes in SE22 and 198 in EX4: postcodes drawn at random across each district, each home once on its latest certificate and only certificates lodged since January 2023. Exeter comes out £75 a year dearer, which is inside what a second sample could move, so we call it similar. Per square metre the two are close as well, £14.11 against £13.57. What does differ is the homes: 73.5% of the Exeter homes with a recent certificate are rated C or better against 54.4% here.

What that figure is not. It is modelled at standard occupancy using the fuel prices current when each certificate was assessed, so it compares two areas honestly and does not predict your bill. Certificates only exist where a property has been sold, let or newly built, so the sample leans toward homes that have changed hands.

One thing worth knowing about how this was measured. We sample the postcode district, not a radius around your address and the first version of this figure did the latter and was badly wrong. Sampling 1km around EX4 4QJ found 33 of 40 postcodes with no certificates at all and a median home of 23m², because that address sits on university land. It would have told you Exeter energy costs half what London does. The next version took the 40 postcodes nearest the middle of each district, which still let one cluster of homes stand for a whole district, so the sample is now drawn at random across all of it. Then review found the certificates themselves mixed two sets of fuel prices. Each is costed at the fuel prices of its day. Certificates lodged from 2023 on read far dearer than older ones, so ten years of them made a district with fewer recent sales look cheaper to heat. Only certificates lodged since January 2023 are read now. Measured that way Exeter is £75 a year dearer, still inside what a second sample could move. A figure measured round a pin is only as good as the pin.

Council tax, every band

Council tax band SouthwarkWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Band A Southwark£1,311.51 Exeter£1,663.57More+£352.06
Band C £1,748.68 £2,218.10More+£469.42
Band D, the standard comparator £1,967.26 £2,495.36More+£528.10£44.01 a month
Band F £2,841.60 £3,604.41More+£762.81
Band H £3,934.52 £4,990.72More+£1,056.20

MHCLG, Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2026-27, Table 9 · fetched 26 Sep 2026 · billing authority

This is the figure including precepts, so county, police and fire are already in it. It is what lands on the bill, not the council’s own share. Parish precepts are excluded and can add a little in some areas.

Which band a property sits in comes from the VOA and we do not know yours. Band D is shown because it is the standard comparator and the others are there so you can find the row that will be yours. Note that the gap widens as the band rises: £352 at A, £1,056 at H.

One trap worth naming. The same release publishes an “average council tax for the area” figure, which reads £1,456.75 for Southwark against the £1,967.26 above. Both are correct and they answer different questions: the average is weighted across every band in the area and the band figure is what a household in that band pays. We use the band figure, because that is the one that arrives.

Two things still missing from the total

Council tax, water and energy are all real now. These two are not and the first of them is almost certainly the largest line of all for this household.

TravelThe big one and it is not missing for the reason we first said. A Zone 1-2 Travelcard against running a car in Exeter is very likely larger than everything above put together and it could run either way. It is not blocked on a routing engine: that is needed for journey times, not costs. It is blocked on the fact that the answer depends entirely on assumptions we would be making for you. How many days you commute, one car or two, whether you park on a permit or a driveway, what insurance costs at a specific postcode. Those assumptions are the judgement, not the arithmetic, which is why this line belongs in a conversation rather than in a table. Until it exists the £685.10 is a floor and not a verdict.
BroadbandOfcom Connected Nations is a bulk file published twice a year, not a query. The smaller of the two and the only other line missing.
3

Your top three factors

Assumed, per the note at the top. A real plan takes these from what you told us.

Schools and room in them

Measure East DulwichWhere you live now · SE22 ExeterConsidering · EX4
Open schools in the postcode district East Dulwich11 Exeter19More+8
Primary 610
Secondary 31plus 1 all ages
Sixth form and 16+ 02
Average occupancy 82.0%11 of 11 reporting 87.8%Fuller+5.8pp16 of 19 reporting

DfE Get Information About Schools · daily bulk extract · fetched 26 Sep 2026 · postcode district

What occupancy is. Pupils on roll divided by stated capacity. It is the closest thing in open data to admissions pressure and a better guide to whether you will get a place than an inspection grade is.

What it is not. A postcode district is not a catchment. A school in EX4 may admit nobody from EX4 4QJ and the school you would actually get may sit in EX2. Until we have the last distance offered from Devon County Council, this tells you about supply in an area and not about your chances at any one school.

There are no Ofsted grades here and that is our limitation rather than the schools'. The DfE register carries an inspectorate name and a date of last visit and no judgement; grades live in a separate file we have not yet joined. Separately, Ofsted stopped issuing one word judgements for state schools in September 2024, so any school inspected since then has no overall grade to find.

Getting a doctor

Measure East DulwichWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Practices rated Good or Outstanding East Dulwich88%of 25 rated · Southwark Exeter100%Better+12ppof 17 rated · Exeter
Rated Outstanding 0 5Better+5
Rated below Good 3require improvement 0Better−3
GP practices registered in the district 32 21
GP practices in your postcode district 6SE22 5No verdictcount onlyEX4

CQC Syndication API, registered GP practices, local district · NHS Organisation Data Service, postcode district · fetched 3 Oct 2026

This is the clearest result in the plan after the money. Every rated practice in Exeter is Good or Outstanding and five are Outstanding. Here 88% are Good, none is Outstanding and three require improvement.

One thing we got wrong first. The register keeps practices that have closed or merged and our first count included them: Southwark read 79.5% of 44 rated. Counting only practices you could actually join, it is 88% of 25, which is how the map always counted. Exeter's first count also reached past the city, because a search for EX1 found EX10 to EX19 as well; held to EX1 to EX6 it is 100% of 17.

Two different geographies in that table, on purpose. The top four rows are the local district, because that is the geography the regulator publishes at. The last row is your postcode district, which is the walk from your door. They are not the same area and they are labelled so you do not read them as one.

What a rating is not. The CQC regulates the practice, not the wait for an appointment. A Good practice can still be impossible to get into and nothing published tells you which. A rating is also the state at the last inspection and those dates vary by years, so an old Good and a fresh Good are not the same claim.

And do not read 6 against 5 as a finding. East Dulwich holds far more people in the same area, so more practices serving more patients is not more availability. Without list sizes that row does not survive contact with arithmetic, which is why it carries no verdict.

The neighbourhood

Measure East DulwichWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Deprivation, English IMD East Dulwich47.3%Less deprived than · rank 15,542 of 32,844 Exeter96.7%Less deprived+49.4ppLess deprived than · rank 31,749 of 32,844
Food businesses within 1 mile 638 373Fewer−265
Rated 3 or better 96.4%of 581 rated 98.5%of 341 rated

postcodes.io, ONS derived · FSA Food Hygiene Rating Scheme · both fetched 26 Sep 2026

On the deprivation rank. Rank 1 is the most deprived neighbourhood in England, so a high number is a comfortable one. We write it out in words because the percentile on its own reads as the opposite of what it means.

On the food businesses. 638 against 373 measures how much is within walking distance, not quality. The quality figures are close enough that the difference is not worth acting on, which is why that row carries no verdict.

4

The honest negatives

Exeter EX4 has flooded. East Dulwich has not.

The Environment Agency's Historic Flood Map records one flood outline intersecting 1km of EX4 4QJ and none within 1km of SE22 8HP. This is the layer of recorded events, not the risk model. It is the difference that cost a household in our research £850: they checked a risk zone map, concluded a bungalow was fine, paid for a survey and then learned from the buildings insurance quote that it had flooded in Storm Dennis.

We verified the zero. The same query returns features for Tewkesbury and York, so none within 1km of SE22 is a real absence and not a failed search.

And here is what it cannot tell you, which matters as much. The layer carries no event name and no date. The only attributes it returns are a shape length and a layer name. So it can say this has flooded and it cannot say Storm Dennis, February 2020. Naming the event needs the insurer, the council or a paid Flood Risk Report.

Second: it costs £685.10 a year more to run. Council tax is £528.10 of that and water £82; energy adds £75, which is inside what a second sample could move. £57.09 a month before travel. Section 2 has the working.

Third: Exeter's schools are fuller. 87.8% against 82.0%. More schools, less room in each.

Fourth and it is about us. Section 2 carries council tax, water and energy. Travel is missing and it is probably the biggest line of the lot and it is the one that could go either way, so the £685.10 is a floor rather than a verdict.

5

What would show up in a survey or an insurance quote

Measure East DulwichWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Recorded historic flooding within 1km East DulwichNone ExeterYesWorseone outline
Flood warning areas within 10km 74 28No verdictsee below

Environment Agency Historic Flood Map and flood areas · fetched 26 Sep 2026

The 74 against 28 is close to meaningless and we would rather say so than let it look like a finding. A flood warning area is a notification zone and 74 of them around SE22 is the tidal Thames and its tributaries doing what a dense river network does. It says nothing about whether a house floods. The row above it is the one that matters.

Not in this plan and all of it would show up in a search: radon, where UKHSA and BGS publish an indicative atlas we have not pulled; coal mining, where the Coal Authority publishes report areas and neither of these postcodes is in a historic coalfield, though that is general knowledge and not a checked figure so treat it as unchecked; and subsidence, ground rent, service charges and cladding, all of which belong to a specific property and none of which can honestly be answered from an area.

6

What we cannot tell you and who to ring

The last thing in this plan on purpose, because it is the part you can act on.

Which school you would actually be offeredDevon County Council school admissions. They publish last distance offered, per school, per year and it is the only number that answers the question.
Whether that flood outline is your streetExeter City Council's Lead Local Flood Authority team and your insurance broker at quote stage. Ask for the event and the year, not the zone.
Ofsted gradesReports for any named school are free at reports.ofsted.gov.uk. Two searches, five minutes and better than anything we can currently give you.
Whether a GP is taking patientsRing the practice. Ratings are in section 3 but they say nothing about the wait and the published feed of which practices are taking new patients is filled in by the practices themselves through NHS Profile Manager with no verification step, so it is not trustworthy even when we have it.
The rest of your monthly costsCouncil tax, water and energy are all in section 2 and need no phone call. For the energy cost of one specific property rather than the area, its EPC is free at the Energy Performance Certificate Register. For the council tax band a property sits in, the VOA at gov.uk.

Nothing in this plan is a recommendation to move and nothing in it is financial advice. It ranks compromises. The decision and whether you can afford it, are yours.

7

Everything else

Crime, for completeness and with a warning attached
Measure East DulwichWhere you live now ExeterConsidering
Recorded crimes, July 2026, within 1 mile East Dulwich918 Exeter550No verdictsee below

police.uk crime at street level · July 2026 · fetched 26 Sep 2026

Do not read this as a comparison, because it is not one. It is a raw count inside a fixed radius, so it counts crimes and it counts people. Inner London and a small city do not hold the same number of either. Until we can express it per head of population it is a number about density as much as about safety and it is flagged in our own data as not comparable so it cannot quietly become a verdict further down the line.