Is Hove, East Sussex a nice place to live?

Is Hove a nice place to live or is Hove rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Hove 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 Hove truly a nice place to live, or are Burgess Hill, Cuckfield and Steyning a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Hove?

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 Hove. 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
Henfield 7
Nep Town 5
Albourne Green 2
Albourne 2
Hickstead 1
Shermanbury 1
Blackstone 1
Crosspost 0
Kent Street 0
High Cross 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Hove. 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 Hove 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 Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead (Best) 28710/32845
Bolney 27087/32845
Burgess Hill Dunstall 26157/32845
Steyning & Ashurst 25796/32845
Burgess Hill Victoria 25752/32845
Henfield 25633/32845
Cuckfield 25408/32845
Hassocks 24484/32845
Hurstpierpoint and Downs 20749/32845
Burgess Hill Meeds (Worst) 20546/32845

Your Health in Hove

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Lewes 1.21% 4.17%
Mid Sussex 0.78% 2.76%
Horsham (Hove) 0.82% 2.71%
Adur 1.25% 4.51%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Bolney (Best) 31576/32845
Hurstpierpoint and Downs 30908/32845
Burgess Hill Dunstall 30378/32845
Cuckfield 29492/32845
Hassocks 29473/32845
Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead 28996/32845
Steyning & Ashurst 28071/32845
Burgess Hill Meeds 27039/32845
Burgess Hill Victoria 25895/32845
Henfield (Worst) 25455/32845

Deprivation in Hove

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 Hove. 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
Hassocks (Best) 29479/32845
Burgess Hill Dunstall 28632/32845
Steyning & Ashurst 27188/32845
Cuckfield 26125/32845
Henfield 25572/32845
Burgess Hill Victoria 24413/32845
Burgess Hill Meeds 24384/32845
Cowfold, Shermanbury & West Grinstead 24031/32845
Hurstpierpoint and Downs 23413/32845
Bolney (Worst) 21385/32845

Average rent in Hove

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Hove

If you are thinking of moving to Hove, 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?