What's going on where you live

🚌 Fares, caps and tickets ✕

Bus fares may be capped where buses are franchised

Several city regions have brought their buses back under public control, giving one fare structure across the whole area — typically a single capped at £2 adult / £1 child and a day of unlimited buses at around £5, however far you travel, so a cross-city route costs the same as two stops. Elsewhere in England a national single-fare cap applies on most routes. Tap on with contactless and the cap usually applies automatically; hoppers (changing buses within an hour) often count as one journey. (Rates as at mid-2026 — they're set annually, so check your operator.)

Rail is priced separately

Train tickets are per-operator and sit outside the bus cap. Where your area offers a combined bus-and-train day ticket, a short hop is often cheaper on that if you're changing modes. For London, advance singles booked weeks ahead are routinely a third of the walk-up fare; a Railcard (16–25, 26–30, Senior, Family, Two Together) takes a further third off for £30/yr.

Reading the times on this card

Intervals shown are typical daytime frequencies; evenings and Sundays run less often. Where live departures are available this card switches to live next departures per stop (bus open data + National Rail), so you'll see "192 in 4 min" rather than a timetable.

Sources: local transport authority fares pages, National Rail. General information; fares change annually.

🚗 Fuel prices, Clean Air Zone and roadworks ✕

Live fuel prices — the new legal open data

Under the Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025, every filling station in the UK must report any price change to a central database within 30 minutes of it changing on the pump — the government's Fuel Finder scheme, live since 2 February 2026 and enforced by the CMA from 1 May. We read that feed directly and list the nearest forecourts by price, so "cheapest nearby" is measured, not guessed.

Clean Air Zones — how they actually work

A Clean Air Zone is an area, usually a city centre, where driving in with an older, more-polluting vehicle costs a daily charge. Cameras read number plates; there are no barriers and nothing to stop for — if your vehicle isn't exempt, you pay online (before, or within days after) or receive a penalty. The charge is per day, not per trip, and it applies to entering the zone: where you live doesn't matter, where you drive does.

Will MY car be charged? Usually not

Most cars on the road today are exempt everywhere: broadly, petrol cars from about 2006 on and diesels from about late 2015 on (Euro 4 and Euro 6 emissions standards) meet every English zone's rules. Zones also differ in who they charge at all — several (Bradford, Sheffield, Tyneside, Bath) charge only taxis, vans, lorries or buses and never private cars, while Birmingham and Bristol do charge older private cars. London's ULEZ is a separate, larger scheme with its own daily charge, and Scotland's Low Emission Zones ban non-compliant vehicles outright with a penalty rather than a charge. Charges and boundaries change, so before driving into a city centre in an older vehicle, put your registration into the official gov.uk Clean Air Zone checker — it answers for your exact vehicle and every English zone in seconds (TfL's checker covers London).

And if you never drive into a charging city?

Then none of this costs you anything. Some areas — Greater Manchester among them — considered charging zones and instead adopted investment-led plans with no driver charges. The maps and charges live with each city, not with your home address.

Roadworks — two sources, stitched together

Motorways and major A-roads near you come from National Highways open data; works on council-managed streets come from Street Manager, the national roadworks permit register. Build 2 merges both and filters to what's within a short drive of your postcode.

Sources: GOV.UK Fuel Finder / Motor Fuel Price (Open Data) Regulations 2025, GOV.UK Clean Air Zones, National Highways open data, DfT Street Manager. General information.

📖 The economics of… — how this works ✕

One wallet question at a time

Each edition takes a spending decision ordinary households actually face — EV or petrol, solar or not, is the cheap petrol station worth the drive — and works it through with sourced, dated numbers for several kinds of consumer. You get the break-even points, not a verdict: the same purchase can be right for one household and wrong for the next.

Drafted by AI, checked by a person

A first draft is produced by AI from the sourced figures, then reviewed and edited by a person before anything is published — the same neutrality rule as the rest of the site: both directions stated, costs of each option shown, no side taken.

Editions are permanent, and get revisited

Every edition keeps a permanent link, so it can be cited and shared later. Each one also lists what would change its own maths — a duty change, a price-cap reset, a subsidy ending. When one of those happens, the same question is re-run and republished with a clear "what changed since we last looked".

General information, not financial advice. Figures are dated in each edition.

🏫 Schools — applying, allocating, and reading Ofsted ✕

How to register your child — the process

Apply online through the council you live in, even if the school you want is in another borough. You rank at least three preferences; you'll need proof of address. Deadlines: 31 October for secondary (offers 1 March), 15 January for primary (offers 16 April). Missing the deadline puts you in the late round, after on-time applicants. Moving mid-year? In-year applications go through the council at any time.

How places are allocated

Each school publishes oversubscription criteria, applied in order — typically: children in care, siblings already at the school, then distance from home; faith schools may add faith criteria. Living in the catchment is a factor, not a guarantee. Ranking preferences honestly costs you nothing: schools never see where you ranked them. If refused, you have a legal right of appeal and can join the waiting list — places move over the summer.

Reading Ofsted since the change

Single-word judgements ended; since November 2025 inspections produce a report card grading six areas (curriculum & teaching, achievement, attendance & behaviour, inclusion, personal development, leadership) on a five-point scale from urgent improvement to exceptional. Many schools still show a legacy grade ("Good, 2022") until reinspected — check the date, and read the areas rather than looking for a single verdict.

School types, briefly

Community schools are council-run; academies and free schools are state-funded but run by trusts and set their own admissions; faith schools may prioritise religious practice. All are free to attend. The type mainly changes who sets the admissions criteria — always read the individual school's.

Sources: DfE Get Information About Schools, Ofsted, and your council's admissions team. England process; dates are statutory and the same every year. General information.

🌍 How the world layers work ✕

The levels come from independent assessors, not from us

Every layer uses two shades of its own colour: darker means severe, lighter means heightened. Conflict follows the International Crisis Group's monthly CrisisWatch tracker and ACLED's event data: severe marks active major armed conflict; heightened marks rising tension, cross-border exchanges or fragile ceasefires. Famine follows the UN-backed IPC phase system: severe marks confirmed famine or "highest concern" (people in Phase 5, catastrophe); heightened marks Phase 4 emergencies and hunger hotspots.

Summaries describe status, not blame

Each callout states what is happening, since when, and the documented drivers (war, drought, access constraints) in one or two sentences, per the site-wide neutrality rule. Where a conflict involves two states, both appear with the same wording.

Travel advice — the Foreign Office's own tiers, relayed

Darker blue marks countries where the FCDO advises against all travel; lighter blue marks "all but essential travel" or advice against travel to parts of a country. This is His Majesty's Government's published advice, relayed unchanged — travelling against it usually invalidates insurance. Every callout links to the full country page on GOV.UK; always check it before booking.

Disease — the WHO's own outbreak gradings, relayed

Severe marks the gravest current outbreaks — cholera with extreme fatality rates, the centre of a declared regional emergency, the last wild-polio countries; heightened marks significant active outbreaks. Sources are the WHO's Disease Outbreak News and multi-country updates, PAHO emergency declarations, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the US CDC — relayed with their own figures and dates, never our judgement. This layer describes outbreaks where they are happening; it is not travel advice — for that, the FCDO layer is the authority.

Disasters — UN alert levels, live where possible

The GDACS system (run by the UN and European Commission) grades every event red, orange or green — and the grade measures the need for international help, not how big the news story is. A serious wildfire in France or an earthquake in Japan is usually green, because those countries respond themselves. All three tiers are shown: red as severe, orange as heightened, green as monitored in the lightest shade. The browser fetches the live event list where it can; otherwise a dated snapshot stands.

A snapshot, refreshed monthly

The world changes faster than any static page; every entry is dated (currently as at 20 July 2026) and the whole layer set is refreshed monthly from the sources' own updates. Live wiring in a later build.

Sources: International Crisis Group CrisisWatch, ACLED, IPC/FAO-WFP Hunger Hotspots, UN OCHA. General information.

🧳 How asylum is funded — the figures ✕

What a person seeking asylum receives

£49.18 a week (£7/day) in self-catered accommodation, or £8.86 a week (£1.26/day) where meals are provided — set by the Home Office, reviewed annually. Working is banned until a claim has waited 12 months, and then only in shortage occupations.

Hotels

Hotels are overflow, used because the decision backlog outgrew normal dispersal housing — block-booked, often budget or repurposed, frequently shared rooms; the star rating on an old sign says nothing about what's inside. They cost over £8m a day (~£3bn/yr), roughly six times dispersal housing — which is why successive governments have committed to ending their use.

Any belongings, such as mobile phones

Phones aren't government-issued. They're usually owned before the journey or cheap/charity handsets — and a smartphone is the one indispensable tool of a crossing (maps, translation, family contact), often the only possession that survives it. Smartphone ownership reflects the low cost of connectivity rather than personal wealth.

Who pays

The Home Office budget — i.e. general taxation — with first-year costs partly counted against the overseas aid budget under international accounting rules. The costs are genuinely large and worth debating: the National Audit Office has criticised multi-billion accommodation contracts. The policy argument is about the fix — faster decisions and cheaper dispersal versus deterrence — not about whether the bill exists.

Why people come — the documented drivers

The top small-boat nationalities map onto documented crises: Eritrea's indefinite military conscription, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Sudan's civil war and famine conditions, persecution in Iran, conflict and drought in Somalia. Around half of decided claims from these countries are granted — these are, in the law's own terms, largely refugee-producing states. Nationality is what's recorded; ethnicity isn't collected.

Eastern Europeans on the boats — a picture that has dated

True in 2022: Albanian nationals were the single largest group that year — about 12,700 people, 27% of all arrivals. Since the UK–Albania returns agreement (December 2022), Albanian crossings have fallen by over 99% — 25 people in the first quarter of 2025 — and Albania accounts for most completed returns. No European nationality features in today's top arrivals; the 2022 pattern no longer describes current crossings.

Sources: ONS long-term migration estimates, Home Office asylum & support statistics, Commons Library briefings, Full Fact. Figures are sourced in both directions. Refreshed quarterly.

💼 What these numbers mean for your job and pay ✕

Two different unemployment numbers — read the right one

The unemployment rate comes from a survey (anyone jobless and actively looking, claiming or not) — the economist's number, national and slow. The claimant count is people claiming unemployment benefits — barely any of it is Jobseeker's Allowance these days; it's almost all Universal Credit with a requirement to seek work, plus a little New Style JSA. It's published monthly right down to ward level, which makes it the timely, local signal — that's the one this card tracks for your area.

Real pay — pay measured against prices

Cash pay rises average 3.4%; with inflation at 2.8%, the average pay rise is worth +0.3% in real terms after prices (ONS measure). In any review or job offer, the comparison point is inflation, not zero: an offer below 2.8% is a reduction in real terms.

What a soft market changes in practice

Vacancies at their lowest since 2021 plus a rising claimant count means more applicants per job: moving jobs gets harder and riskier, employers regain negotiating power, and the premium for switching shrinks. It's the classic moment to consolidate — build the case for progression where you're already valued — and if you are job-hunting, expect longer searches and lean on the support that comes with the claim (work coaches, training budgets) rather than going it alone.

Why we show your ward, not just the nation

National rates hide huge local variation — neighbouring wards in the same borough can differ sharply, and your ward is the job market you actually live in. Ward-level claimant data updates monthly via Nomis, one of the very few economic numbers that exists at that scale.

So what does this mean for me, here?

Read the card's local claimant figure against the national rate shown beside it. Lower than national generally means a tighter local labour market — fewer people chasing each vacancy, a little more negotiating room for you. Higher means more competition per job and typically longer searches. The single most useful thing is the direction over a few months, not any one month's number: a steady local rise is an early warning the area's employers are shedding, often visible before anything makes the news.

Which industries? This card can't tell you — here's what can

The claimant count doesn't say which industries people left, and we won't pretend otherwise. For that, the ONS publishes employment by industry for your local authority (Business Register and Employment Survey, on Nomis's local labour-market profiles) — it shows which sectors dominate where you live, which is usually more telling than any national headline: a national retail downturn matters far more in a town where retail is the biggest employer.

What to look out for

Three signals worth a monthly glance: your local claimant trend (this card), the national vacancies trend (fewer vacancies per jobseeker = cooling market), and pay against inflation — if the CPI figure on the Money card outruns typical pay rises, "real" pay is falling even when payslips grow. None of these is advice; they're the same three dials economists watch, pointed at your postcode.

Sources: ONS Labour Force Survey & claimant count (live series), Nomis for local. General information, not financial or careers advice.

🏡 How care funding works ✕

Check the free routes first — in this order

NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC): if care needs are primarily health needs, the NHS pays everything, regardless of savings — always ask for the assessment before agreeing fees. Not eligible but in a nursing home? The NHS still pays the £267.68/wk funded nursing care element direct to the home — check it's coming off the bill.

The means test — and where the house fits

Council funding starts when assets fall below £23,250 (England). Your income (pensions) contributes first; then savings; then the home's value. The home is not counted while a partner, a relative over 60, or a dependent child lives there — and never for care in your own home. When it does count, three softenings apply: a 12-week property disregard at the start (the house is ignored while you organise), a deferred payment agreement (the council pays now, recovers from the estate later — so a sale usually happens after death, not during life), or the family can pay a top-up for a dearer home (binding — take advice before signing one). In short: unless someone protected still lives in it, the house is expected to fund the care.

Self-funders: two things worth knowing

Homes routinely quote self-funders more than the council pays for the same room — you can ask the council to arrange your care at its rate even when you're paying. And once savings approach the threshold, involve the council early: assessments take time and top-ups trap the unwary.

Where availability information lives

First, the mental model: there are no NHS-run care homes — homes are private, charity or council-run, and the NHS or council fund places in them. Live vacancies have no public data source anywhere (the NHS Capacity Tracker is internal-only), but three groups see the picture daily and will search for you: the council's adult social care team — request a needs assessment (a legal right, free, regardless of savings) and they must broker a placement at their rate if eligible; hospital discharge teams, who place people every day; and the ICB (NHS), which arranges and pays for the home if Continuing Healthcare applies. Going it alone, the CQC register (ratings + phone numbers — we'll pull it via the API) is the complete ring-round list.

England rules, 2026/27 rates; Scotland and Wales differ. A council financial assessment and Age UK's guidance are the proper next steps — this is general information, not financial advice.

🕊 Funerals — costs, rights and help ✕

What the law requires is much less than the package

Legally you need the death registered, paperwork for burial or cremation, and respectful care of the person. No law requires embalming, a viewing, a hearse, an expensive coffin — or a funeral director at all. Everything beyond the paperwork is choice, not obligation.

The price lists exist to be compared

Since the CMA's 2021 market order, every funeral director must display a standardised price list in branch and online — same format everywhere, so quotes compare like-for-like. Prices for the same service vary by hundreds of pounds within a mile; comparing two lists is the single most effective cost decision.

Direct cremation is a legitimate mainstream choice

At ~£1,628 versus ~£3,828+ attended, a fifth of families now choose cremation without a service, then hold their own farewell wherever and whenever suits.

Help available

On qualifying benefits, the DWP Funeral Expenses Payment covers cremation/burial fees plus up to £1,000 towards other costs; Bereavement Support Payment is separate and not means-tested. If there's truly no money and no one able to arrange it, the council must provide a public health funeral. Pre-paid plans are now FCA-regulated — check any old plan is with a regulated provider.

Figures: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026. General information, not financial or legal advice.

🧾 Smoking, drinking, driving — the workings ✕

Smoking, 10 a day ≈ £2,300/yr

Cigarette tax is three layers: £7.07 duty per pack of 20, plus 16.5% of the retail price, plus VAT on top of both. On a ~£17 pack that's ~£12.70 to HMRC (~75–80% of the price). Half a pack a day ≈ 183 packs a year. Duty rises again on 1 Oct 2026 (RPI +2% and an extra £2.20 per 100).

Drinking, 14 units a week ≈ £250/yr

Alcohol duty is charged per litre of pure alcohol (~£33 for spirits). 14 units a week — the NHS guideline ceiling — is about 7.3 litres of pure alcohol a year ≈ £240 duty, plus VAT on every bottle on top. Drink it as pub beer instead and the duty is lower (draught relief) but the VAT far higher.

Driving 10,000 petrol miles ≈ £835/yr more than an EV

At 40 mpg that's ~1,136 litres: fuel duty (52.95p/L, frozen only until Sept 2026) ≈ £601, plus VAT on the pump price ≈ £270. A home-charged EV pays just 5% VAT on electricity (~£35/yr); both now pay the same VED. From April 2028 EVs pay 3p/mile (~£300 at this mileage), narrowing the gap to roughly £530.

Caveats

These duties are set deliberately high, to cover health and carbon costs and to change behaviour — which is also why they're avoidable in a way income tax isn't. Figures use average prices and typical consumption; your brands, ABV and mpg will move them. The country comparison is total tax-to-GDP (OECD 2024), which includes employer costs — no single number captures "how taxed you are", but it's the least-bad one.

Rates: HMRC tobacco/alcohol/fuel duty pages (post Autumn Budget 2025). Comparison: OECD Revenue Statistics 2025. Refreshed after each Budget. General information, not financial advice.

📅 Add your event ✕

In the full app this needs a signed-in account, and events are checked before other people see them. Your event stays in this browser — personal events are not synced to your account yet.

🛒 Why your shop doesn't feel like the headline rate ✕

The headline inflation rate is not your basket

The official rate averages ~700 items — rent, transport, haircuts, streaming — weighted by what the whole country spends. Food is only about a tenth of it. If your money mostly goes on groceries and essentials, your personal inflation rate can run well above or below the headline. That's what this card tracks: the actual shelf price of staples, from the same ONS survey that feeds the official numbers.

Reading the country comparison

US prices are the official BLS city average; German prices are typical supermarket prices. Both are converted at today's exchange rate, so the gap moves when the pound moves — a "cheaper than America" result is partly a currency story. Products aren't perfectly identical across countries (sizes, grades and farming standards differ), and UK food carries no VAT while some US states tax groceries.

Which country is "cheaper" flips about — item by item

There's no fixed league table. Right now US beef is far dearer than ours (a herd squeeze), while US egg prices collapsed in 2026 after the avian-flu spike that had made them famously expensive. When one item bucks the trend, that's usually a supply story — disease, weather, feed costs — not general inflation, and it tends to unwind.

UK prices: ONS RPI average price series, updated monthly. FX: ECB reference rates via Frankfurter. General information, not financial advice.

🗳 What you need to vote ✕

Be registered — the deadline is earlier than you think

Registration closes 12 working days before polling day. It takes about five minutes online and you only need to do it again if you move house or change name.

Bring photo ID to the polling station

Accepted: passport, driving licence (including provisional), older or disabled person's bus pass, and others — expired ID is fine if the photo still looks like you. No ID? Apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate before the deadline. Polls open 7am–10pm.

Can't get there on the day?

Apply for a postal vote (at least 11 working days before) or a proxy vote — someone you trust votes on your behalf (at least 6 working days before).

Local vs national — what each vote decides

Council elections choose the councillors who run local services — depending on your council that means all seats at once every four years, or a third of them in most years. General elections choose your MP. Some city regions also elect a mayor every four years. Candidate lists and each candidate's statement or manifesto are on Who Can I Vote For once nominations close.

General guidance — deadlines are set per election; check GOV.UK when one is called. Sources: GOV.UK, Electoral Commission, Democracy Club.

💷 Autumn Budget 2025 — what it means for you ✕

Tax thresholds frozen until April 2031 — the largest revenue-raiser

Income tax and NI thresholds stay put while wages rise, so each pay rise drags more of your income into tax, or into a higher band, without any headline rate changing. Threshold freezes raise more revenue than most headline rate rises.

Savings and dividends taxed more

Dividend tax rises 2p in the pound from Apr 2026; tax on savings interest and property income rises 2p from Apr 2027. Money inside an ISA is untouched — shelter savings there first.

Pay, benefits and pensions up

National Living Wage £12.21 → £12.71/hr (Apr 2026). The two-child benefit cap is scrapped (Apr 2026) — worth up to ~£3,500/yr per additional child for affected families. State pension up 4.8% to £241.30/wk (new) under the triple lock.

Driving costs rise later

The fuel duty freeze and 5p cut survive only to Sept 2026 — pump prices may rise after that. Electric cars pay 3p per mile (hybrids 1.5p) from Apr 2028.

Pension top-ups via salary sacrifice

From Apr 2029 only the first £2,000/yr of salary-sacrifice pension contributions escapes NI — if you pay more than that in this way, it matters to your take-home.

Refreshed after each Budget (one a year, in the autumn — next: autumn 2026, date TBA). General information, not financial advice. Sources: HM Treasury, House of Commons Library.

🏛 What applies to your home ✕

Why this matters before you start work

Most homes have permitted development rights — a set of changes you can make without applying for planning permission. Designations like a conservation area or an Article 4 direction take some of those rights away. The work is usually still possible; you just have to ask first. Doing it without asking can mean an enforcement notice requiring you to undo it at your own cost.

Trees are the one people get caught by

In a conservation area, or where a tree preservation order applies, cutting down, topping or lopping a tree without consent is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine — and it applies to the contractor as well as the homeowner. In a conservation area you must give the council six weeks' notice before work on most trees, even without a TPO.

An empty result is not a clean bill of health

This is the most important thing on this page. The national register is in beta and coverage varies by council — not every authority has supplied its data yet. MHCLG say so themselves: an absence of results does not mean no constraints exist. So this card only ever tells you what is recorded. If it shows nothing, that means nothing is recorded, which is not the same as nothing applying. Before you spend money, ring your council's planning department and ask them to confirm.

"Recorded by the council" vs "assembled"

Rows marked council-supplied came from the local planning authority itself. The rest were assembled by MHCLG from Historic England and other public sources while authorities catch up, and are more likely to be out of date or approximate.

A postcode is not an address

We check the map point for your postcode, and a postcode can cover a whole street. A boundary can run down the middle of it — your neighbour may be inside a conservation area while you are outside it, or the reverse. Treat this as "worth checking", never as a decision.

Where to get the definitive answer

Your council's planning department holds the legal position and most offer a pre-application advice service for a modest fee — far cheaper than building something you have to take down. For flooding, the Environment Agency's own flood risk service is definitive. For listed buildings, search the National Heritage List for England. Check flood risk National Heritage List Do I need permission?

Source: MHCLG Planning Data Platform (planning.data.gov.uk), Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains Historic England data © Historic England 2026 and Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Service is in beta. General information, not planning advice.

🏗 How planning applications work ✕

The statuses

NEW — the council has received it and opened a comment window (usually ~21 days). PENDING — awaiting a decision: most are decided by council planning officers; larger or contested schemes go to a public planning committee you can attend, and often speak at. DECIDED — granted or refused; the applicant can appeal a refusal, neighbours can't appeal a grant.

Commenting counts — if it's on planning grounds

Anyone can comment, free, on the council's portal. What carries weight are material considerations: traffic and parking, noise, smells, privacy and overlooking, loss of light, character of the area. What doesn't: effect on your property's value, or who the applicant is. One well-argued letter on planning grounds beats ten "I object" one-liners.

Deadlines matter

Comments after the window closes may not be considered — silence is read as no objection. If a scheme affects you, comment early and tell your ward councillors too (they can "call in" an application to committee).

Where this data comes from

Every application shown here starts life on the council's own planning register, and every link on this card takes you to the council's portal — that's where the documents live and where comments count. Gathering that data from all 400-plus UK planning authorities is made possible by PlanIt (planit.org.uk), a remarkable free public service built and run by one volunteer, Andrew Speakman, which StreetOwl gratefully relies on. If you value this card, his project is the one to thank — and it runs on donations.

General guidance — the exact process varies slightly by council. Sources: council planning portals / GOV.UK planning guidance · data aggregation by PlanIt.

🌊 What flood alerts and river levels mean ✕

The three levels

Flood alert — flooding is possible: be prepared, keep an eye on updates. Flood warning — flooding is expected: act now — move valuables, medicines and pets upstairs, be ready to turn off gas, electricity and water. Severe flood warning — danger to life: follow emergency services' instructions.

The river gauge and "typical range"

The typical range is the band the river normally sits in. Above typical isn't flooding — it means the river is high; it matters if it keeps rising after sustained rain. The Environment Agency issues an alert well before levels threaten property.

Worth doing once

Sign up for the EA's free flood warnings by phone, text or email — they'll contact you rather than you having to check.

Sign up for warnings Check flooding now

Source: Environment Agency / GOV.UK flood guidance.

🏦 What do these numbers mean for mortgage rates? ✕

…

The 2% target

The Government sets the Bank of England a target of keeping inflation — measured by the CPI, the Consumer Prices Index — at 2%. The Bank's main lever is Bank Rate — the interest rate it pays on banks' deposits, which anchors what banks charge everyone else.

Inflation above 2% → rates tend to rise (or stay high)

When inflation runs above target, the Bank tends to raise Bank Rate, or hold it higher for longer. Dearer borrowing cools spending, which pulls inflation back down. When inflation falls back to (or below) target, the Bank tends to cut.

The knock-on effect on mortgages

Tracker mortgages follow Bank Rate directly — a change shows in your payment the following month. Standard variable rates (SVR) usually move within weeks, at the lender's discretion. Fixed-rate deals don't change until the deal ends — but new fixes are priced off market expectations of where Bank Rate is heading (swap rates), so they often move before the Bank does anything. The flip side: higher Bank Rate generally means better savings rates.

General information, not financial advice — mortgage pricing also depends on your deal, loan-to-value and lender competition. Sources: ONS CPI (D7G7), Bank of England.

✉️ Send feedback ✕

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