The strife that plagues the average EastEnders resident might not be far from reality: research shows that one in five people living in the East End does not like anything about the area.
Second-year geography students at Queen Mary, University of London, interviewed more than 200 residents in the London borough of Newham for the research, commissioned by the East London Communities Organisation.
They found that only 20 per cent of locals could list something they liked about the area, one of the most multiculturally diverse in the UK. One in three cited crime as the worst aspect of living in the East End.
Only a third of the residents felt there was a strong sense of community and barely one in five knew more than ten of their neighbours by name.
The students also found that people living in the area were 50 per cent below the national average when it came to participation in community activities.