Is Barnard Castle, Durham a nice place to live?

Is Barnard Castle a nice place to live or is Barnard Castle rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Barnard Castle 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 Barnard Castle truly a nice place to live, or are Bishop Auckland, Durham and Richmond a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Barnard Castle?

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 Barnard Castle. 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
Barnard Castle 22
Tees 18
Stainton 9
Cockfield 5
Staindrop 3
Bowes 0
Butterknowle 0
Greta Bridge 0
Barningham 0
Eggleston 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Barnard Castle. 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 Barnard Castle 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 Richmond North ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Richmond North (Best) 32497/32845
Lower Swaledale & Arkengarthdale 32163/32845
Melsonby 30148/32845
Barnard Castle East 25773/32845
Barnard Castle West 25561/32845
Heighington & Coniscliffe 20868/32845
West Auckland 15552/32845
Evenwood 14622/32845
Woodhouse Close 4740/32845
Shildon and Dene Valley (Worst) 3690/32845
Reader Opinion:

Consett, the inbred pissy-mattress furnished capital of the North

Your Health in Barnard Castle

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

Town Very Bad Bad
County Durham (Barnard Castle) 1.82% 6.35%
Darlington 1.36% 4.51%
Hambleton 0.97% 3.33%
Richmondshire 0.76% 2.93%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Melsonby (Best) 28578/32845
Lower Swaledale & Arkengarthdale 26963/32845
Richmond North 25376/32845
Barnard Castle East 16571/32845
Barnard Castle West 15390/32845
Heighington & Coniscliffe 15150/32845
Evenwood 9202/32845
West Auckland 7851/32845
Shildon and Dene Valley 4337/32845
Woodhouse Close (Worst) 2472/32845
Reader Opinion:

Willington & Sunnybrow, bleak sh*tholes somewhere in County Durham

Deprivation in Barnard Castle

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 Barnard Castle. 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
Richmond North (Best) 28025/32845
Melsonby 22637/32845
Heighington & Coniscliffe 21859/32845
Barnard Castle West 19241/32845
Barnard Castle East 18298/32845
Lower Swaledale & Arkengarthdale 16546/32845
Evenwood 12640/32845
West Auckland 12561/32845
Shildon and Dene Valley 4561/32845
Woodhouse Close (Worst) 4081/32845

Average rent in Barnard Castle

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Barnard Castle

If you are thinking of moving to Barnard Castle, 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?