Is Barnstaple, Devon a nice place to live?

Is Barnstaple a nice place to live or is Barnstaple rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Barnstaple 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 Barnstaple truly a nice place to live, or are Bideford, Ilfracombe and Northam a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Barnstaple?

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 Barnstaple. 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
Barnstaple 98
Raleigh 95
Pilton 80
Newport 76
Burridge 41
Bickington 22
Roundswell 19
Rumsam 16
Lake 14
Ashford 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Barnstaple. 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 Barnstaple 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 Heanton Punchardon ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Heanton Punchardon (Best) 31705/32845
Fremington 31241/32845
Roundswell 28143/32845
Bickington 27558/32845
Landkey 27430/32845
Marwood 25216/32845
Newport 20747/32845
Barnstaple with Pilton 19423/32845
Barnstaple with Westacott 15943/32845
Barnstaple Central (Worst) 11220/32845
Reader Opinion:

North Devon - Grockle Hell

Your Health in Barnstaple

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Cornwall 1.43% 4.87%
North Devon (Barnstaple) 1.27% 4.34%
Torridge 1.31% 4.9%
West Devon 1.18% 3.96%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Heanton Punchardon (Best) 20597/32845
Marwood 19621/32845
Landkey 19112/32845
Bickington 16697/32845
Roundswell 16525/32845
Fremington 14334/32845
Barnstaple with Pilton 12542/32845
Newport 10703/32845
Barnstaple with Westacott 7858/32845
Barnstaple Central (Worst) 4466/32845
Reader Opinion:

Chulmleigh, Devon: Death by platitudes

Deprivation in Barnstaple

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 Barnstaple. 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
Heanton Punchardon (Best) 23355/32845
Fremington 22653/32845
Bickington 21051/32845
Landkey 19236/32845
Roundswell 18916/32845
Newport 16387/32845
Marwood 15835/32845
Barnstaple with Pilton 13651/32845
Barnstaple with Westacott 10841/32845
Barnstaple Central (Worst) 6428/32845

Average rent in Barnstaple

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Barnstaple

If you are thinking of moving to Barnstaple, 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?