Is Brighton, East Sussex a nice place to live?

Is Brighton a nice place to live or is Brighton rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Brighton 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 Brighton truly a nice place to live, or are Newhaven, Peacehaven and Seaford a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Brighton?

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 Brighton. 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
Newhaven 43
South Heighton 36
Tarring Neville 12
Exceat 7
Bishopstone 4
Norton 4
Alfriston 2
Berwick 2
Milton Street 2
Friston 2

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Brighton. 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 Brighton 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 Seaford West ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Seaford West (Best) 31563/32845
Seaford East 28051/32845
South Downs 27603/32845
Seaford North 27333/32845
Ouse Valley & Ringmer 25099/32845
Seaford South 22541/32845
Seaford Central 20845/32845
Peacehaven East 18835/32845
Newhaven North 16411/32845
Newhaven South (Worst) 12806/32845
Reader Opinion:

Brighton: ruined by Trustafarians & middle aged hippie consumers

Your Health in Brighton

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Brighton and Hove 1.2% 4.08%
Eastbourne 1.45% 4.74%
Wealden 0.96% 3.49%
Lewes (Brighton) 1.21% 4.17%

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

Ward Average rank in England
South Downs (Best) 28608/32845
Seaford West 26458/32845
Ouse Valley & Ringmer 23164/32845
Seaford East 22058/32845
Seaford South 21885/32845
Seaford North 20678/32845
Seaford Central 17403/32845
Peacehaven East 16170/32845
Newhaven North 12790/32845
Newhaven South (Worst) 11675/32845
Reader Opinion:

Brighton - Blackpool of the South

Deprivation in Brighton

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 Brighton. 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
Seaford West (Best) 25460/32845
Seaford East 23233/32845
Seaford South 21822/32845
South Downs 20663/32845
Ouse Valley & Ringmer 19602/32845
Seaford North 19270/32845
Seaford Central 18648/32845
Peacehaven East 13459/32845
Newhaven North 11511/32845
Newhaven South (Worst) 9153/32845

Average rent in Brighton

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Brighton

If you are thinking of moving to Brighton, 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?