Is Dorchester, Oxfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Dorchester a nice place to live or is Dorchester rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Dorchester 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 Dorchester truly a nice place to live, or are Abingdon, Didcot and Wallingford a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Dorchester?

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 Dorchester. 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
Shillingford 5
Berinsfield 4
Stadhampton 3
Brookhampton 3
Thame 3
Chislehampton 3
Drayton St Leonard 2
Warborough 1
Burcot 0
Long Wittenham 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Dorchester. 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 Dorchester 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 Sutton Courtenay ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Sutton Courtenay (Best) 31033/32845
Benson & Crowmarsh 30643/32845
Chalgrove 30527/32845
Abingdon Peachcroft 30261/32845
Didcot North East 28395/32845
Cholsey 26683/32845
Wallingford 25634/32845
Berinsfield 25596/32845
Sandford & the Wittenhams 20558/32845
Didcot South (Worst) 19322/32845
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Your Health in Dorchester

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Oxford 0.85% 2.76%
Cherwell 0.84% 3%
West Berkshire 0.68% 2.48%
South Oxfordshire (Dorchester) 0.73% 2.62%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Benson & Crowmarsh (Best) 31797/32845
Chalgrove 30682/32845
Cholsey 30154/32845
Abingdon Peachcroft 29990/32845
Didcot North East 29392/32845
Sutton Courtenay 28385/32845
Wallingford 27529/32845
Sandford & the Wittenhams 25936/32845
Berinsfield 25431/32845
Didcot South (Worst) 23913/32845
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Deprivation in Dorchester

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 Dorchester. 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
Benson & Crowmarsh (Best) 29439/32845
Abingdon Peachcroft 28992/32845
Didcot North East 28347/32845
Chalgrove 28268/32845
Cholsey 28124/32845
Wallingford 26996/32845
Sutton Courtenay 25443/32845
Sandford & the Wittenhams 22218/32845
Didcot South 21983/32845
Berinsfield (Worst) 20463/32845

Average rent in Dorchester

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Dorchester

If you are thinking of moving to Dorchester, 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?