Is Dewsbury, Yorkshire a nice place to live?

Is Dewsbury a nice place to live or is Dewsbury rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Dewsbury 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 Dewsbury truly a nice place to live, or are Batley, Heckmondwike and Ossett a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Dewsbury?

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 Dewsbury. 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
Batley Carr 158
Staincliffe 158
Batley 144
Boothroyd 122
Hanging Heaton 119
Earlsheaton 101
Lower Soothill 73
Chickenley 63
Calder and Hebble Navigation 51
Chidswell 49

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Dewsbury. 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 Dewsbury 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 Wrenthorpe and Outwood West ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West (Best) 16577/32845
Mirfield 15294/32845
Dewsbury South 11966/32845
Ossett 11805/32845
Morley South 11338/32845
Batley East 7689/32845
Heckmondwike 6057/32845
Dewsbury East 6034/32845
Batley West 3893/32845
Dewsbury West (Worst) 3420/32845
Reader Opinion:

Wakefield: a cultural wilderness of apish men and women in white stilettos

Your Health in Dewsbury

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Leeds 1.22% 4.19%
Bradford 1.33% 4.55%
Wakefield 1.7% 5.99%
Kirklees (Dewsbury) 1.25% 4.5%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Mirfield (Best) 17742/32845
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West 13504/32845
Heckmondwike 12846/32845
Morley South 12757/32845
Dewsbury East 12725/32845
Batley East 12706/32845
Ossett 11628/32845
Dewsbury South 11474/32845
Batley West 11410/32845
Dewsbury West (Worst) 6796/32845
Reader Opinion:

Cleckhuddersfax, where to start...

Deprivation in Dewsbury

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 Dewsbury. 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
Mirfield (Best) 20364/32845
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West 19553/32845
Ossett 16772/32845
Morley South 15308/32845
Heckmondwike 10493/32845
Dewsbury East 9521/32845
Dewsbury South 9214/32845
Batley East 9198/32845
Batley West 8945/32845
Dewsbury West (Worst) 3820/32845

Average rent in Dewsbury

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Dewsbury

If you are thinking of moving to Dewsbury, 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?