Is Blackburn, Lancashire a nice place to live?

Is Blackburn a nice place to live or is Blackburn rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Blackburn 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 Blackburn truly a nice place to live, or are Darwen, Great Harwood and Oswaldtwistle a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Blackburn?

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 Blackburn. 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
Blackburn 205
Brookhouse 188
Higher Audley 171
Intack 113
Little Harwood 106
Revidge 105
Four Lane End 105
Brownhill 58
Bank Hey 57
Pleckgate 33

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Blackburn. 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 Blackburn 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 Billinge & Beardwood ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Billinge & Beardwood (Best) 16073/32845
Bastwell & Daisyfield 14776/32845
Shear Brow & Corporation Park 12459/32845
Little Harwood & Whitebirk 12348/32845
Audley & Queen's Park 9993/32845
Wensley Fold 9976/32845
Blackburn Central 7828/32845
Blackburn South East 5761/32845
Ewood 5728/32845
Mill Hill & Moorgate (Worst) 4147/32845
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Your Health in Blackburn

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Blackburn with Darwen (Blackburn) 1.58% 5.71%
Hyndburn 1.66% 5.95%
Chorley 1.22% 4.31%
Ribble Valley 0.85% 3.16%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Billinge & Beardwood (Best) 10565/32845
Shear Brow & Corporation Park 6054/32845
Ewood 4024/32845
Little Harwood & Whitebirk 3688/32845
Audley & Queen's Park 2928/32845
Blackburn Central 2499/32845
Wensley Fold 2413/32845
Mill Hill & Moorgate 2246/32845
Bastwell & Daisyfield 2233/32845
Blackburn South East (Worst) 1684/32845
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Deprivation in Blackburn

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 Blackburn. 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
Billinge & Beardwood (Best) 14489/32845
Ewood 7875/32845
Shear Brow & Corporation Park 6582/32845
Mill Hill & Moorgate 4772/32845
Little Harwood & Whitebirk 4461/32845
Audley & Queen's Park 3648/32845
Wensley Fold 3589/32845
Blackburn South East 3172/32845
Blackburn Central 2896/32845
Bastwell & Daisyfield (Worst) 2714/32845

Average rent in Blackburn

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Blackburn

If you are thinking of moving to Blackburn, 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?