Cost of living near best schools

The truth about exactly how much living near one of the best primary schools affects the price of your home is revealed today.

An Evening Standard investigation shows that prices can increase by as much as 57 per cent.

Today, London's Schools Commissioner Professor Tim Brighouse acknowledged that the findings reflected parents' anxieties about education standards in London and the surrounding areas.

"It is about their perception of the quality of schools, which is fuelled by exam league tables," he said.

Professor Brighouse, appointed by the Government to co-ordinate efforts to improve London schools, said: "Like parents everywhere, people in London will do anything to get their children into the school that they perceive will give them the best chance. In London, the effect is magnified."

The Evening Standard's investigation concentrated on some of the top primary schools in the capital, according to the most recent league tables. We surveyed estate agents operating near each of the schools, asking them to compare prices for flats and houses inside catchment areas with prices of equivalent properties just outside.

The results were staggering. Houses near All Saints Church of England Primary School in Sutton bore a premium of more than a third. Houses close to St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, Westminster, and Grimsdyke First and Middle School, Haringey, cost 25 per cent more.

But Kew, Richmond, showed the single largest price rise. It is home to The Queen's Church of England Primary School, one of the country's top primaries. Parents would have to pay up to 29 per cent more for a flat and 57 per cent more for a house in the area than they would for a similarsized property just outside the school's catchment area.

Headteacher Jane Goodlace has run The Queen's for seven years and helped it to achieve "beacon" status twice. Beacon schools receive extra cash from the state.

Mrs Goodlace said: "There is an impact on property prices because the school has a consistently good reputation."

Estate agent Phillip Harrison, of Winkworth in Ealing - where homes within the catchment area of St Gregory's School cost six per cent more - said: "There are some very good schools in that area and people particularly want to move to be near them. House prices in that area are less susceptible to the ups and downs of the market." Robert Harrison, of Harrisons estate agents in Hendon, said: "St Joseph's RC Primary School does boost prices.

"There is a lot of mischief with people buying flats in the area and not actually moving in, just so they can get an address in the area."

A recent study by the London School of Economics, reported in the Evening Standard, put the average price differential between homes within and outside the catchment of a top primary school at 33 per cent. Properties in the catchment area of a top secondary school cost 18 per cent more.

The premiums are stark evidence of the desperation of parents.

Most of London's best primaries are Church schools. but Church school authorities acknowledge that they have some poor schools as well.

Critics claim Church schools abuse the rules by interviewing prospective pupils. The Government has decided to forbid this practice from admissions procedures from 2005.