Is Bournemouth, Dorset a nice place to live?

Is Bournemouth a nice place to live or is Bournemouth rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Bournemouth 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 Bournemouth truly a nice place to live, or are Christchurch, Ferndown and Poole a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Bournemouth?

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 Bournemouth. 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
Springbourne 245
Bournemouth 167
Pokesdown 125
Charminster 95
Moordown 94
Talbot Village 87
Ensbury Park 87
Bourne Valley 70
Talbot Heath 70
Talbot Woods 67

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Bournemouth. 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 Bournemouth 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 Canford Cliffs ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Canford Cliffs (Best) 22528/32845
Moordown 20485/32845
Littledown & Ilford 17587/32845
Talbot & Branksome Woods 15387/32845
Westbourne & West Cliff 15008/32845
Queen's Park 12476/32845
Winton East 12205/32845
Boscombe West 5863/32845
East Cliff & Springbourne 5068/32845
Bournemouth Central (Worst) 4827/32845
Reader Opinion:

Isle of Portland - Where hope goes to die

Your Health in Bournemouth

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Southampton 1.2% 3.89%
Isle of Wight 1.47% 5.01%
New Forest 1.08% 3.81%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Canford Cliffs (Best) 26051/32845
Littledown & Ilford 20491/32845
Moordown 19978/32845
Talbot & Branksome Woods 17485/32845
Queen's Park 15886/32845
Winton East 15426/32845
Westbourne & West Cliff 14220/32845
Bournemouth Central 10995/32845
Boscombe West 8867/32845
East Cliff & Springbourne (Worst) 8708/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sunny, Sunny Bournemouth, it's more like crappy, crappy Bournemouth

Deprivation in Bournemouth

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 Bournemouth. 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
Canford Cliffs (Best) 27470/32845
Littledown & Ilford 23601/32845
Moordown 23043/32845
Talbot & Branksome Woods 19239/32845
Winton East 17527/32845
Queen's Park 17364/32845
Westbourne & West Cliff 14943/32845
Bournemouth Central 11199/32845
East Cliff & Springbourne 9172/32845
Boscombe West (Worst) 8887/32845

Average rent in Bournemouth

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Bournemouth

If you are thinking of moving to Bournemouth, 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?