Is Gillingham, Kent a nice place to live?

Is Gillingham a nice place to live or is Gillingham rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Gillingham 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 Gillingham truly a nice place to live, or are Chatham, Rainham and Rochester a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Gillingham?

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 Gillingham. 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
Brompton 434
Gillingham 382
Frindsbury 144
Grange 141
Lower Twydall 56
Twydall 43
Capstone 33
Chattenden 28
Lower Upnor 22
Hoo St Werburgh 22

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Gillingham. 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 Gillingham 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 Hempstead and Wigmore ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Hempstead and Wigmore (Best) 23656/32845
Lordswood and Capstone 12597/32845
Watling 10519/32845
Twydall 10263/32845
River 7986/32845
Rochester West 5062/32845
Luton and Wayfield 3300/32845
Gillingham South 3174/32845
Gillingham North 3097/32845
Chatham Central (Worst) 2313/32845
Reader Opinion:

Chatham, Kent, aka Chavham

Your Health in Gillingham

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Medway (Gillingham) 1.09% 3.94%
Southend-on-Sea 1.26% 4.48%
Gravesham 1.1% 4.03%
Tonbridge and Malling 0.86% 3.09%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Hempstead and Wigmore (Best) 27373/32845
Rochester West 18250/32845
Watling 17824/32845
Lordswood and Capstone 17180/32845
Twydall 12062/32845
River 11043/32845
Gillingham North 9879/32845
Gillingham South 9723/32845
Luton and Wayfield 8421/32845
Chatham Central (Worst) 8025/32845
Reader Opinion:

Maidstone - The biggest moving mistake of my life

Deprivation in Gillingham

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 Gillingham. 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
Hempstead and Wigmore (Best) 29973/32845
Watling 18718/32845
Lordswood and Capstone 16163/32845
Rochester West 15081/32845
Twydall 11421/32845
River 10527/32845
Gillingham South 7013/32845
Gillingham North 5730/32845
Luton and Wayfield 5326/32845
Chatham Central (Worst) 4752/32845

Average rent in Gillingham

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Gillingham

If you are thinking of moving to Gillingham, 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?