Is Croydon, London a nice place to live?

Is Croydon a nice place to live or is Croydon rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Croydon 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 Croydon truly a nice place to live, or are Beckenham, Bromley and Mitcham a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Croydon?

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 Croydon. 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
Borad Green 350
South Norwood 257
Wandle Park 210
Addiscombe 146
Monks Orchard 121
Bandonhill 112
Beddington 99
Roundshaw 92
Shirley 68
South Croydon 65

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Croydon. 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 Croydon 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 Addiscombe West ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Addiscombe West (Best) 15446/32845
South Croydon 15186/32845
Addiscombe East 14879/32845
Beddington South 14715/32845
Park Hill & Whitgift 12003/32845
Waddon 10187/32845
West Thornton 6597/32845
Broad Green 5990/32845
Selhurst 4767/32845
Fairfield (Worst) 3605/32845
Reader Opinion:

Orpington has been growing in recent years to be one of the most chavy areas imaginable.

Your Health in Croydon

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Croydon (Croydon) 1.09% 3.5%
Lambeth 1.17% 3.54%
Merton 0.88% 2.97%
Sutton 0.9% 3.19%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Park Hill & Whitgift (Best) 22265/32845
South Croydon 19950/32845
Beddington South 18770/32845
Addiscombe East 18619/32845
West Thornton 16852/32845
Addiscombe West 16604/32845
Broad Green 14621/32845
Fairfield 13215/32845
Waddon 12773/32845
Selhurst (Worst) 11384/32845
Reader Opinion:

Mitcham, 85% of businesses are fast food joints, kebab & fried chicken shops

Deprivation in Croydon

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 Croydon. 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
Park Hill & Whitgift (Best) 17842/32845
South Croydon 17262/32845
Addiscombe East 17164/32845
Beddington South 16701/32845
Addiscombe West 13932/32845
West Thornton 9876/32845
Waddon 9246/32845
Broad Green 7837/32845
Fairfield 7182/32845
Selhurst (Worst) 6050/32845

Average rent in Croydon

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Croydon

If you are thinking of moving to Croydon, 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?