Is Chelmsford, Essex a nice place to live?

Is Chelmsford a nice place to live or is Chelmsford rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Chelmsford 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 Chelmsford truly a nice place to live, or are Clackwell, Prettlewell and Stanfield le Hope a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Chelmsford?

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 Chelmsford. 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
Chelmsford 160
Springfield 148
Great Baddow 65
Chelmer Village 49
Reader’s Corner 39
Broomfield 37
Parsonage Green 37
Blasford Hill 27
Boreham 7
Chignall St James 5

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Chelmsford. 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 Chelmsford 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 Moulsham Lodge ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Moulsham Lodge (Best) 25166/32845
Chelmer Village and Beaulieu Park 23233/32845
The Lawns 20528/32845
Great Baddow East 19317/32845
Patching Hall 16970/32845
Waterhouse Farm 16957/32845
Marconi 16128/32845
Moulsham and Central 14357/32845
St Andrews 14246/32845
Trinity (Worst) 14159/32845
Reader Opinion:

Harlow - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter...

Your Health in Chelmsford

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Basildon 1.32% 4.21%
Chelmsford (Chelmsford) 0.81% 2.84%
Epping Forest 1.04% 3.56%
Brentwood 0.88% 3.13%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Moulsham Lodge (Best) 30250/32845
Chelmer Village and Beaulieu Park 29553/32845
The Lawns 28845/32845
Great Baddow East 25019/32845
Moulsham and Central 24236/32845
Trinity 22899/32845
Patching Hall 22327/32845
St Andrews 19751/32845
Waterhouse Farm 18715/32845
Marconi (Worst) 18471/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bradwell on Sea: Village of the damned

Deprivation in Chelmsford

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 Chelmsford. 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
The Lawns (Best) 30916/32845
Moulsham Lodge 30269/32845
Chelmer Village and Beaulieu Park 25490/32845
Moulsham and Central 23694/32845
Trinity 23123/32845
Great Baddow East 22568/32845
Patching Hall 21479/32845
Waterhouse Farm 19540/32845
St Andrews 17040/32845
Marconi (Worst) 15795/32845

Average rent in Chelmsford

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Chelmsford

If you are thinking of moving to Chelmsford, 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?