Is Folkestone, Kent a nice place to live?

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

What are the crime levels like in Folkestone?

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 Folkestone. 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
Coolinge 69
Morehall 69
Cheriton 53
Capel-le-Ferne 47
Sandgate 32
Shorncliffe Camp 24
Horn Street 10
Gibraltar 8
Paddlesworth 1
Arpinge 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Folkestone. 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 Folkestone 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 North Downs West ward.

Ward Average rank in England
North Downs West (Best) 25861/32845
Hythe 24220/32845
Sandgate & West Folkestone 23763/32845
North Downs East 20823/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 19273/32845
Cheriton 18455/32845
Broadmead 9231/32845
Folkestone Central 7093/32845
East Folkestone 7014/32845
Folkestone Harbour (Worst) 5537/32845
Reader Opinion:

Deal overrun with the fake designer label loving mutants

Your Health in Folkestone

If you are thinking of moving to Folkestone, 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 Folkestone 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 (Folkestone) 1.49% 4.93%
Dover 1.33% 4.96%
Ashford 1.06% 3.53%

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

Ward Average rank in England
North Downs West (Best) 24330/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 21643/32845
North Downs East 20248/32845
Hythe 19034/32845
Cheriton 18256/32845
Sandgate & West Folkestone 17386/32845
Broadmead 12650/32845
East Folkestone 9222/32845
Folkestone Central 8342/32845
Folkestone Harbour (Worst) 7530/32845
Reader Opinion:

Dover - Arsehole of England

Deprivation in Folkestone

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 Folkestone. 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
North Downs East (Best) 20256/32845
Hythe 19818/32845
North Downs West 19666/32845
Sandgate & West Folkestone 18750/32845
Alkham & Capel-le-Ferne 17064/32845
Cheriton 15413/32845
Broadmead 14824/32845
East Folkestone 8229/32845
Folkestone Central 7574/32845
Folkestone Harbour (Worst) 5264/32845

Average rent in Folkestone

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Folkestone

If you are thinking of moving to Folkestone, 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?