How Escape Map works

How the indicators work

Higher means a greater measured constraint. Distance indicators increase with straight-line distance; density increases through fixed people-per-acre bands. Crime deciles compare areas only within the same national publication. Ireland compares quarterly volumes; its indicators are not per-capita risk and should not be compared with UK rates.

Flood bands map to low 3, medium 6 and high 9. Rainfall, height and distance from water are not used to invent a flood probability. No verified band means no flood score. The seismic indicator combines recorded event magnitude, proximity and frequency. Neither indicator predicts a disaster, and an overall hazard indicator is shown only when both inputs exist.

Housing compared with the national average

Social housing is compared as a percentage of households. Asylum/IPAS accommodation is compared as people per 1,000 census residents. National rates use the summed counts divided by the summed denominators across all 361 UK councils or all 31 Irish councils; they are not an unweighted average of council percentages. UK areas use the UK benchmark and Irish areas use Ireland.

Below twice the national rate, the score is five times the local rate divided by the national rate, rounded to the nearest whole number and limited to 1–9. Five represents the national average; twice the average or more receives ten. Zero recorded people or households receives one. Green is 1–3, amber 4–6 and red 7–10. These colours indicate housing prevalence, not a crime or personal-safety prediction.

Population and household denominators retain their census dates: 2021 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 2022 for Scotland and Ireland. UK population totals combine these census years; the population denominator is not a current-year estimate. New validated accommodation releases update both the local count and the national numerator together. A retained Irish historical release is compared only with that same historical national total.

Accommodation counts cover Home Office asylum support or IPAS, not all migrants. Ethnicity remains a separate descriptive census breakdown and does not enter these housing comparisons or crime scores.

Updates and retained evidence

Stored place reports expire after 22 hours; official crime responses can be cached for one hour. Together with browser caching, successful automatic checks fit within a 24-hour window when a report is requested. Scottish linked data, Irish CJQ10/CJQ11 and UK/Irish accommodation can refresh automatically after validation. Accommodation checks run when the map or data-status page is requested, with 22 hours between successful checks and a one-hour retry interval after failure. Both Home Office tables must reconcile before any council count changes. Irish IPAS updates require all 31 council occupancy counts and a matching published total. Ambiguous files, changed geographies or unsupported formats retain the previous dated release for review.

Census tenure, England/Wales annual crime, Northern Ireland district crime, amenities and climate snapshots change when an updated dataset is validated and published in a website release. Daily source monitoring does not itself create new statistics. On a failed update the previous release keeps its original date. View data updates and completed accommodation checks.

Your saved places

Saved places stay in your browser. An account is not required. Map and routing providers receive coordinates needed to answer a lookup.