Is Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Houghton Regis a nice place to live or is Houghton Regis rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Houghton Regis 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 Houghton Regis truly a nice place to live, or are Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Luton a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Houghton Regis?

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 Houghton Regis. 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
Leagrave 106
Parkside 83
Bidwell 62
Dunstable 48
Beecroft 35
Downside 13
Chaul End 12
Fancott 4
Tebworth 2
Tilsworth 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Houghton Regis. 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 Houghton Regis 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 Dunstable-Watling ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Dunstable-Watling (Best) 17051/32845
Dunstable-Icknield 12142/32845
Leagrave 10223/32845
Lewsey 9466/32845
Tithe Farm 8048/32845
Dunstable-Northfields 7957/32845
Houghton Hall 7850/32845
Dunstable-Central 6116/32845
Parkside 4604/32845
Dunstable-Manshead (Worst) 4428/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bedford - get ready for the nice smell of strong urine

Your Health in Houghton Regis

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Luton 1.2% 3.73%
Central Bedfordshire (Houghton Regis) 0.84% 3.02%
Dacorum 0.87% 3.16%
North Hertfordshire 0.81% 3.11%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Dunstable-Watling (Best) 27684/32845
Dunstable-Icknield 24746/32845
Dunstable-Central 22210/32845
Dunstable-Manshead 18253/32845
Dunstable-Northfields 18051/32845
Houghton Hall 16069/32845
Tithe Farm 15619/32845
Parkside 13560/32845
Leagrave 11000/32845
Lewsey (Worst) 8427/32845
Reader Opinion:

Luton - England's Toilet

Deprivation in Houghton Regis

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 Houghton Regis. 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
Dunstable-Watling (Best) 26038/32845
Dunstable-Icknield 20666/32845
Dunstable-Central 17322/32845
Dunstable-Manshead 13077/32845
Dunstable-Northfields 12897/32845
Houghton Hall 12479/32845
Tithe Farm 11905/32845
Leagrave 10453/32845
Parkside 9398/32845
Lewsey (Worst) 8674/32845

Average rent in Houghton Regis

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Houghton Regis

If you are thinking of moving to Houghton Regis, 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?