Is Grays, Essex a nice place to live?

Is Grays a nice place to live or is Grays rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Grays 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 Grays truly a nice place to live, or are Chafford Hundred, Tilbury and Swanscombe and Greenhithe a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Grays?

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 Grays. 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
Little Thurrock 109
Grays 80
Tilbury 71
Biggin 68
South Ockendon 55
South Stifford 53
Greenhithe 51
Lakeside 39
North Stifford 18
Baker Street 4

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Grays. 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 Grays 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 Chafford and North Stifford ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Chafford and North Stifford (Best) 23516/32845
South Chafford 22254/32845
Little Thurrock Rectory 17140/32845
Stifford Clays 16361/32845
Grays Thurrock 14762/32845
Little Thurrock Blackshots 13110/32845
West Thurrock and South Stifford 9150/32845
Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park 8753/32845
Grays Riverside 8573/32845
Tilbury St Chads (Worst) 5444/32845
Reader Opinion:

Canvey Island, a great place to take your kids... if you hate them

Your Health in Grays

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Bexley 1.09% 3.74%
Thurrock (Grays) 1.03% 3.73%
Gravesham 1.1% 4.03%
Dartford 1.03% 3.4%

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

Ward Average rank in England
South Chafford (Best) 27140/32845
Chafford and North Stifford 25508/32845
Little Thurrock Rectory 24653/32845
Little Thurrock Blackshots 21506/32845
Grays Riverside 19120/32845
West Thurrock and South Stifford 18880/32845
Grays Thurrock 17886/32845
Stifford Clays 16765/32845
Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park 13867/32845
Tilbury St Chads (Worst) 10705/32845
Reader Opinion:

Tilbury, a God-forsaken town of disgruntled, rancorous d*ckheads

Deprivation in Grays

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 Grays. 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
South Chafford (Best) 27515/32845
Chafford and North Stifford 25246/32845
Little Thurrock Rectory 23408/32845
Little Thurrock Blackshots 18395/32845
Stifford Clays 16109/32845
Grays Thurrock 15409/32845
Grays Riverside 13618/32845
West Thurrock and South Stifford 11894/32845
Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park 7198/32845
Tilbury St Chads (Worst) 5253/32845

Average rent in Grays

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Grays

If you are thinking of moving to Grays, 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?