Is Bicester, Oxfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Bicester a nice place to live or is Bicester rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Bicester 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 Bicester truly a nice place to live, or are Brackley, Weston Otmoor and Woodstock a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Bicester?

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 Bicester. 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 Area Voilent Crimes
Bicester 68
Highfield 66
Launton 15
Caversfield 15
Chesterton 15
Ambrosden 4
Little Chesterton 3
Bainton 3
Stratton Audley 1
Bucknell 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Bicester. 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 Bicester 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 Little Brook ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Little Brook (Best) 31200/32845
Marsh Gibbon 30847/32845
Quainton 30595/32845
Grendon Underwood & Brill 28550/32845
Launton and Otmoor 24218/32845
Fringford and Heyfords 23704/32845
Bicester North and Caversfield 22890/32845
Bicester South and Ambrosden 18306/32845
Bicester East 16231/32845
Bicester West (Worst) 15552/32845
Reader Opinion:

Southampton - flawed pearl of the South

Your Health in Bicester

If you are thinking of moving to Bicester, 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 Bicester compares to its neighbouring local authorities. People were asked to rate their current health from very bad to very good;

Town Very Bad Bad
Milton Keynes 0.94% 3.2%
Oxford 0.85% 2.76%
Cherwell (Bicester) 0.84% 3%
South Oxfordshire 0.73% 2.62%

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Bicester. 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 Bicester. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

Ward Average rank in England
Little Brook (Best) 32223/32845
Quainton 30112/32845
Marsh Gibbon 29382/32845
Grendon Underwood & Brill 28878/32845
Fringford and Heyfords 25910/32845
Bicester North and Caversfield 25897/32845
Launton and Otmoor 24949/32845
Bicester South and Ambrosden 23589/32845
Bicester East 19571/32845
Bicester West (Worst) 18925/32845
Reader Opinion:

Smacklesfield... I mean Macclesfield

Deprivation in Bicester

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 Bicester. 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.

Ward Average rank in England
Little Brook (Best) 27326/32845
Quainton 26084/32845
Bicester North and Caversfield 25090/32845
Marsh Gibbon 23193/32845
Bicester South and Ambrosden 23159/32845
Bicester East 21832/32845
Grendon Underwood & Brill 21427/32845
Bicester West 19901/32845
Launton and Otmoor 19684/32845
Fringford and Heyfords (Worst) 18908/32845

Average rent in Bicester

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These statistics for Bicester 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 Bicester.

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Bicester

If you are thinking of moving to Bicester, 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.

How grim is your Postcode?