Is Bath, Somerset a nice place to live?

Is Bath a nice place to live or is Bath rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Bath 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 Bath truly a nice place to live, or are Keynsham, Radstock and Bradford on Avon a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Bath?

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 Bath. 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
Bath 160
Beechen Cliff 156
Dolemeads 156
Bathwick 139
Larkhall 133
Fairfield Park 133
Beacon Hill 133
Lansdown 117
Oldfield Park 91
Lambridge 68

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Bath. 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 Bath 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 Widcombe & Lyncombe ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Widcombe & Lyncombe (Best) 23264/32845
Oldfield Park 22104/32845
Lambridge 21282/32845
Westmoreland 18379/32845
Lansdown 17886/32845
Bathwick 17852/32845
Moorlands 17763/32845
Walcot 17042/32845
Southdown 16122/32845
Kingsmead (Worst) 10923/32845
Reader Opinion:

Keighley: the most depressing and dull place I've ever encountered

Your Health in Bath

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Bristol, City of 1.27% 4.22%
Wiltshire 0.87% 3.18%
South Gloucestershire 0.93% 3.26%
Bath and North East Somerset (Bath) 0.91% 3.31%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Widcombe & Lyncombe (Best) 30189/32845
Lambridge 28256/32845
Oldfield Park 27226/32845
Lansdown 24058/32845
Moorlands 23825/32845
Bathwick 23758/32845
Walcot 22922/32845
Westmoreland 22406/32845
Southdown 18888/32845
Kingsmead (Worst) 17253/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bradford is the stinking ar*e crack of Europe

Deprivation in Bath

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 Bath. 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
Widcombe & Lyncombe (Best) 30354/32845
Oldfield Park 30087/32845
Lambridge 27856/32845
Westmoreland 26780/32845
Bathwick 25276/32845
Moorlands 24583/32845
Walcot 23858/32845
Lansdown 23628/32845
Southdown 20692/32845
Kingsmead (Worst) 17966/32845

Average rent in Bath

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Bath

If you are thinking of moving to Bath, 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?