Is Dover, Kent a nice place to live?

Is Dover a nice place to live or is Dover rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Dover 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 Dover truly a nice place to live, or are Deal, Folkestone and Sandwich a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Dover?

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 Dover. 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
Dover 141
Buckland 118
Buckland Valley 94
Tower Hamlets 72
Aycliff 22
Maxton 22
Church Whitfield 19
Pineham 19
Farthingloe 11
Kearnsey 6

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Dover. 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 Dover 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 Dover Downs & River ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Dover Downs & River (Best) 22316/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 19273/32845
Aylesham, Eythorne & Shepherdswell 16466/32845
Whitfield 14056/32845
Maxton & Elms Vale 13584/32845
Town & Castle 6290/32845
Folkestone Harbour 5537/32845
Buckland 3940/32845
Tower Hamlets 2479/32845
St Radigunds (Worst) 1400/32845
Reader Opinion:

Deal, a pleasant Kent seaside resort on the face of it, but dig deeper...

Your Health in Dover

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Canterbury 1.12% 4.06%
Shepway 1.49% 4.93%
Dover (Dover) 1.33% 4.96%
Ashford 1.06% 3.53%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Dover Downs & River (Best) 21902/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 21643/32845
Maxton & Elms Vale 19457/32845
Whitfield 16690/32845
Aylesham, Eythorne & Shepherdswell 15892/32845
Buckland 11085/32845
Tower Hamlets 10835/32845
Town & Castle 10544/32845
St Radigunds 8787/32845
Folkestone Harbour (Worst) 7530/32845
Reader Opinion:

Deal overrun with the fake designer label loving mutants

Deprivation in Dover

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 Dover. 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
Dover Downs & River (Best) 25118/32845
Maxton & Elms Vale 19844/32845
Whitfield 17172/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 17064/32845
Aylesham, Eythorne & Shepherdswell 13833/32845
Town & Castle 7754/32845
Buckland 7109/32845
Tower Hamlets 5427/32845
Folkestone Harbour 5264/32845
St Radigunds (Worst) 4863/32845

Average rent in Dover

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Dover

If you are thinking of moving to Dover, 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?