Is Bedford, Bedfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Bedford a nice place to live or is Bedford rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Bedford is on the up an up, it's time for a bit of reality. Cold hard statistics culled from the Police, the Indices of Deprivation and the latest census. Is Bedford truly a nice place to live, or are Kempston, Sandy and Wixams a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Bedford?

Using the latest Police street crime figures (typically from 3 months ago) we have compiled a table of the most voilent Policing areas in and around Bedford. Naturally the more urban and more central areas will have a higher rate of crime, but often you can be surprised when that is not the case and that is the area you want to move to.
Policing AreaVoilent Crimes
Bedford232
Castle218
South End114
Fenlake84
Kempston79
Salph End65
Brickhill44
Harrowden33
Biddenham26
Clapham Green4

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Bedford. These statistics are published by the government every 2-3 years. They are a measure of how likely you are to be a victim of personal or material crime in an area, such as muggings or burglary. We've taken the rank average for wards in and around Bedford and compared them. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst.

You least likely to be a victim of crime in the Bromham and Biddenham ward.

WardAverage rank in England
Bromham and Biddenham (Best)26778/32845
Brickhill21944/32845
De Parys17629/32845
Kempston Central and East15656/32845
Newnham15530/32845
Kempston North13568/32845
Queens Park12008/32845
Harpur10825/32845
Cauldwell9934/32845
Castle (Worst)8840/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bedford: Things started to slide back in the 80s

Your Health in Bedford

If you are thinking of moving to Bedford, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. We've taken the healh question from the latest census to find out and how Bedford compares to its neighbouring local authorities. People were asked to rate their current health from very bad to very good;

TownVery BadBad
Milton Keynes0.94%3.2%
Bedford (Bedford)0.98%3.55%
Huntingdonshire0.85%3.09%
South Northamptonshire0.77%2.64%

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Bedford. They measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health, lovely! We've collated an average rank for all the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) in each ward in and around Bedford. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

WardAverage rank in England
Bromham and Biddenham (Best)25874/32845
Newnham20047/32845
De Parys18083/32845
Brickhill18055/32845
Castle14780/32845
Kempston North14073/32845
Kempston Central and East13719/32845
Queens Park13132/32845
Cauldwell11231/32845
Harpur (Worst)8397/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bedford and Kempston "Your Papers Please!!"

Deprivation in Bedford

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average Index of Multiple Deprivation rank of all the LSOAs in the wards in and around Bedford. In layman's terms, this is how rough the ward is based on mutiple measures of deprivation including; employment, income, health, crime, housing and outside space.

WardAverage rank in England
Bromham and Biddenham (Best)28733/32845
Brickhill21487/32845
De Parys20916/32845
Newnham20718/32845
Castle13294/32845
Kempston Central and East13121/32845
Kempston North12967/32845
Harpur9936/32845
Queens Park9106/32845
Cauldwell (Worst)8462/32845

Average rent in Bedford

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These statistics for Bedford are dated September 2021. They are split into three figures, the lower quartile, mean and upper quartile. If you recieve housing benefit or the housing benefit section of Universal Credit, the lower quartile is at the top limit of what would be affordable. The mean is the average you'd expect to pay for a rental property and the upper quartile is the average rental cost of the most expensive 25% of properties in Bedford.

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Bedford

If you are thinking of moving to Bedford, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. The government publish regular statistics on gross weekly pay and pay per hour.


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