Is Harlow, Essex a nice place to live?

Is Harlow a nice place to live or is Harlow rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Harlow 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 Harlow truly a nice place to live, or are Epping, Hoddesdon and Sawbridgeworth a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Harlow?

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 Harlow. 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
Harlow 162
Netteswell 154
Mark Hall South 151
Latton Bush 91
Mark Hall North 87
Little Parndon 70
Passmores 65
Hare Street 58
Temple Fields 54
Great Parndon 49

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Harlow. 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 Harlow 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 Great Parndon ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Great Parndon (Best) 17680/32845
Sumners and Kingsmoor 16069/32845
Hunsdon 15055/32845
Little Parndon and Hare Street 14821/32845
Harlow Common 11727/32845
Bush Fair 11385/32845
Mark Hall 9808/32845
Staple Tye 7744/32845
Toddbrook 7708/32845
Netteswell (Worst) 6837/32845
Reader Opinion:

Harlow - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter...

Your Health in Harlow

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Enfield 1.34% 4.11%
Epping Forest 1.04% 3.56%
Harlow (Harlow) 1.21% 4.15%
Broxbourne 1.04% 3.59%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Hunsdon (Best) 30097/32845
Sumners and Kingsmoor 14835/32845
Great Parndon 13779/32845
Harlow Common 12091/32845
Little Parndon and Hare Street 11303/32845
Mark Hall 11101/32845
Netteswell 10354/32845
Toddbrook 10320/32845
Bush Fair 9796/32845
Staple Tye (Worst) 9506/32845
Reader Opinion:

Waltham Abbey, Essex aka "d-abbey"

Deprivation in Harlow

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 Harlow. 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
Hunsdon (Best) 20049/32845
Great Parndon 16316/32845
Sumners and Kingsmoor 15269/32845
Little Parndon and Hare Street 12741/32845
Harlow Common 12581/32845
Mark Hall 11178/32845
Bush Fair 11036/32845
Toddbrook 11010/32845
Netteswell 10360/32845
Staple Tye (Worst) 8446/32845

Average rent in Harlow

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Harlow

If you are thinking of moving to Harlow, 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?