- guardian.co.uk, Monday March 5 2007 09.03 GMT
It might come as a shock for an area that has always prided itself on its conspicuous consumption (thanks in part to footballers and their wives), but the home of the north-west's millionaires' belt has failed to make the top of Britain's richest regions, according to a survey published today.
London and Hampshire emerge as the richest, but Cheshire, where pockets of overt affluence stretch from the south Manchester suburbs into the north of the county, has only managed 11th place, with a mere 2.7% of the country's wealthiest people, way behind London (13%) and Hampshire (8%). Yorkshire, where they like their brass and tend to keep quiet about how much of it they own, is third (6.1%), Surrey (5.8%) fourth, Middlesex (4.8%) fifth and Lancashire sixth (3.8%).
Two Scottish counties make it into the top 20: Midlothian, which includes Edinburgh, is ranked 13th, with 2.6% of the wealthy, and Dunbarton 18th, with 2.1%.
The top two postcode areas for wealthy people are London's south-west (SW) and north-west (NW), followed by GU (Surrey/Hampshire), KT (Surrey/south-west London) and EH (Midlothian).
The wealth map of the nation was prepared by Ledbury Research for Barclays Wealth Insights and was based on a sample of 500 affluent individuals. Rich in the researchers' terms means those with £100,000 in investable assests, a bracket which includes 5% of the population.
The research reveals that Britain is increasingly a country of the self-made rich, with 71% of those surveyed saying that savings from earnings was one of their key sources of wealth. Inherited wealth ranks third as an income source, named by 30%, behind profit from property investments (44%).
