Is Highcliffe, Dorset a nice place to live?

Is Highcliffe a nice place to live or is Highcliffe rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Highcliffe 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 Highcliffe truly a nice place to live, or are Blandford Forum, Sturminster Newton and Wimborne Minster a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Highcliffe?

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 Highcliffe. 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
Blandford Forum 13
Lower Blandford St Mary 11
Langton Long Blandford 11
Blandford St Mary 9
Littleton 6
Bryanston 5
Pimperne 5
Stourpaine 5
Blandford Camp 3
Charlton on the Hill 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Highcliffe. 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 Highcliffe 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 Puddletown & Lower Winterborne ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Puddletown & Lower Winterborne (Best) 30097/32845
Winterborne North 29220/32845
Blackmore Vale 29024/32845
Sturminster Newton 28783/32845
Hill Forts & Upper Tarrants 27815/32845
Cranborne Chase 26926/32845
Blandford 24565/32845
Beacon 24111/32845
Stour & Allen Vale 23779/32845
Wimborne Minster (Worst) 18287/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sheerness: industrial eyesore & the ‘crapital’ of the Isle of Sheppey

Your Health in Highcliffe

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

Town Very Bad Bad
New Forest 1.08% 3.81%
South Somerset 1.03% 3.79%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Stour & Allen Vale (Best) 31219/32845
Cranborne Chase 28633/32845
Sturminster Newton 25319/32845
Wimborne Minster 24785/32845
Blackmore Vale 24714/32845
Puddletown & Lower Winterborne 24658/32845
Hill Forts & Upper Tarrants 23682/32845
Beacon 23040/32845
Winterborne North 22493/32845
Blandford (Worst) 21908/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sheerness: where hopes, dreams and junkies go to die

Deprivation in Highcliffe

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 Highcliffe. 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
Stour & Allen Vale (Best) 23460/32845
Wimborne Minster 23208/32845
Sturminster Newton 20230/32845
Blandford 20146/32845
Puddletown & Lower Winterborne 18852/32845
Cranborne Chase 18360/32845
Hill Forts & Upper Tarrants 17888/32845
Blackmore Vale 17785/32845
Winterborne North 16634/32845
Beacon (Worst) 15258/32845

Average rent in Highcliffe

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Highcliffe

If you are thinking of moving to Highcliffe, 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?