Is Croydon, Surrey 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 Horley, Redhill and Reigate 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
Holmethorpe 90
Redhill 89
Coles Meads 87
Earlswood 39
Mead Vale 35
Reigate 35
Doversgreen 15
Gatton 11
Margery 4
Reigate Heath 0

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 Brockham, Betchworth and Buckland ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Brockham, Betchworth and Buckland (Best) 25204/32845
Reigate 23599/32845
Horley East & Salfords 21797/32845
Meadvale & St John's 21626/32845
Redhill West & Wray Common 21122/32845
Lower Kingswood, Tadworth & Walton 21103/32845
South Park & Woodhatch 19600/32845
Redhill East 19458/32845
Earlswood & Whitebushes 18518/32845
Horley West & Sidlow (Worst) 18106/32845
Reader Opinion:

Crawley vs Croydon vs Sutton

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
Reigate and Banstead (Croydon) 0.85% 2.79%
Crawley 0.97% 3.45%
Tandridge 0.86% 2.9%
Epsom and Ewell 0.71% 2.68%

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
Brockham, Betchworth and Buckland (Best) 28628/32845
Reigate 28038/32845
Horley East & Salfords 27223/32845
Meadvale & St John's 26794/32845
Lower Kingswood, Tadworth & Walton 24450/32845
Earlswood & Whitebushes 24175/32845
Redhill East 24121/32845
Redhill West & Wray Common 22745/32845
Horley West & Sidlow 22578/32845
South Park & Woodhatch (Worst) 21217/32845
Reader Opinion:

Crappy Crawley - depressing hole of the south

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
Reigate (Best) 28578/32845
Brockham, Betchworth and Buckland 27230/32845
Meadvale & St John's 26798/32845
Lower Kingswood, Tadworth & Walton 25851/32845
Redhill East 25079/32845
Earlswood & Whitebushes 24258/32845
Horley East & Salfords 23951/32845
Redhill West & Wray Common 23521/32845
Horley West & Sidlow 21256/32845
South Park & Woodhatch (Worst) 20278/32845

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?