Is Devizes, Wiltshire a nice place to live?

Is Devizes a nice place to live or is Devizes rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Devizes 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 Devizes truly a nice place to live, or are Calne, Chippenham and Melksham a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Devizes?

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 Devizes. 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
Roundway 29
Dunkirk 18
Nursteed 12
Bishops Cannings 5
Tanis 2
Potterne 1
Rowde 0
Bourton 0
Heddington 0
Heddington Wick 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Devizes. 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 Devizes 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 Urchfont and The Cannings ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Urchfont and The Cannings (Best) 29564/32845
Bromham, Rowde and Potterne 28493/32845
Roundway 27598/32845
Melksham Without North 27408/32845
Calne Rural 26487/32845
Pewsey Vale 26060/32845
Devizes and Roundway South 24010/32845
Devizes East 23695/32845
The Lavingtons and Erlestoke 21983/32845
Devizes North (Worst) 19847/32845
Reader Opinion:

Trowbridge - An Unpolished Turdtown

Your Health in Devizes

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Wiltshire (Devizes) 0.87% 3.18%
South Gloucestershire 0.93% 3.26%
Swindon 0.97% 3.61%
Bath and North East Somerset 0.91% 3.31%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Urchfont and The Cannings (Best) 30018/32845
Pewsey Vale 27951/32845
Melksham Without North 27734/32845
Calne Rural 25624/32845
The Lavingtons and Erlestoke 25613/32845
Bromham, Rowde and Potterne 23267/32845
Devizes and Roundway South 22034/32845
Roundway 21216/32845
Devizes East 16808/32845
Devizes North (Worst) 14813/32845
Reader Opinion:

Melksham: It's Grim Down South

Deprivation in Devizes

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 Devizes. 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
Melksham Without North (Best) 25643/32845
Roundway 23647/32845
The Lavingtons and Erlestoke 23385/32845
Devizes and Roundway South 22455/32845
Urchfont and The Cannings 22057/32845
Calne Rural 21148/32845
Pewsey Vale 19518/32845
Bromham, Rowde and Potterne 18432/32845
Devizes East 18322/32845
Devizes North (Worst) 15601/32845

Average rent in Devizes

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Devizes

If you are thinking of moving to Devizes, 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?