Is Darwen, Lancashire a nice place to live?

Is Darwen a nice place to live or is Darwen rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Darwen 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 Darwen truly a nice place to live, or are Accrington, Blackburn and Oswaldtwistle a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Darwen?

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 Darwen. 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
Chapels 96
Lower Darwen 79
Earcroft 47
Grimshaw 42
Waterside 35
Hoddlesden 34
Blacksnape 17
Belthorn 2
Bank Fold 2
Tockholes 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Darwen. 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 Darwen 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 Helmshore ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Helmshore (Best) 26767/32845
West Pennine 19631/32845
Livesey with Pleasington 17148/32845
Immanuel 15545/32845
Blackburn South & Lower Darwen 12629/32845
Darwen South 11471/32845
Darwen West 8519/32845
Blackburn South East 5761/32845
Ewood 5728/32845
Darwen East (Worst) 4952/32845
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Your Health in Darwen

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Blackburn with Darwen (Darwen) 1.58% 5.71%
Hyndburn 1.66% 5.95%
Chorley 1.22% 4.31%
Rossendale 1.41% 5.11%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Helmshore (Best) 17276/32845
West Pennine 15568/32845
Livesey with Pleasington 9160/32845
Blackburn South & Lower Darwen 7914/32845
Darwen South 7583/32845
Immanuel 6140/32845
Darwen West 5865/32845
Ewood 4024/32845
Darwen East 1850/32845
Blackburn South East (Worst) 1684/32845
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Deprivation in Darwen

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 Darwen. 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
Helmshore (Best) 24205/32845
West Pennine 22148/32845
Livesey with Pleasington 20600/32845
Blackburn South & Lower Darwen 15061/32845
Darwen South 13494/32845
Immanuel 12697/32845
Darwen West 9535/32845
Ewood 7875/32845
Blackburn South East 3172/32845
Darwen East (Worst) 3097/32845

Average rent in Darwen

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Darwen

If you are thinking of moving to Darwen, 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?