Regional Trends No.36 (2001 Ed.)

Regional Trends brings together data from a wide range of governmental and non governmental sources to present comparative statistics that illustrate regional diversity across the United Kingdom. While the regions are similar in many aspects of daily life, regional differences in income, housing costs , health, and unemployment exist. Over the period 1997-2000 average gross weekly household income in London was more than one and a half times that of households in the North East. In terms of personal income, London and the South East also have the highest proportion of people with a taxable income of GBP50,000 or more. To balance this weekly household expenditure and housing costs are higher than the national average and house prices continue to rise at a higher rate. Between 1999 and 2000 London house prices increased by almost 19 per cent. In relation to people’s health the north-south difference is pronounced. Deaths from circulatory diseases are much higher in the north, although the differences have narrowed slightly in recent years.