Is Lewes, East Sussex a nice place to live?

Is Lewes a nice place to live or is Lewes rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Lewes 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 Lewes truly a nice place to live, or are Newhaven, Peacehaven and Telscombe a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Lewes?

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 Lewes. 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
South Malling 40
Landport 40
Southover 36
Wallands Park 27
Hamsey 8
Offham 8
Iford 5
Rushey Green 0
Cooksbridge 0
Barcombe 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Lewes. 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 Lewes 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 Plumpton, Streat, East Chiltington & St John ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Plumpton, Streat, East Chiltington & St John (Best) 30737/32845
Chailey, Barcombe & Hamsey 26430/32845
Arlington 26412/32845
Woodingdean 24054/32845
Kingston 23241/32845
Lewes Priory 21114/32845
Lewes Bridge 21064/32845
Peacehaven North 20857/32845
Moulsecoomb and Bevendean 14253/32845
Lewes Castle (Worst) 14251/32845
Reader Opinion:

Newhaven - That Jewel in the Crown

Your Health in Lewes

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Brighton and Hove 1.2% 4.08%
Wealden 0.96% 3.49%
Lewes (Lewes) 1.21% 4.17%
Mid Sussex 0.78% 2.76%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Kingston (Best) 29516/32845
Chailey, Barcombe & Hamsey 28146/32845
Plumpton, Streat, East Chiltington & St John 27250/32845
Arlington 26988/32845
Lewes Priory 25526/32845
Lewes Bridge 24783/32845
Lewes Castle 23685/32845
Peacehaven North 17803/32845
Woodingdean 16781/32845
Moulsecoomb and Bevendean (Worst) 8465/32845

Deprivation in Lewes

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 Lewes. 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
Lewes Priory (Best) 25335/32845
Plumpton, Streat, East Chiltington & St John 24573/32845
Lewes Bridge 21278/32845
Arlington 20948/32845
Chailey, Barcombe & Hamsey 18674/32845
Kingston 18116/32845
Lewes Castle 17547/32845
Woodingdean 16869/32845
Peacehaven North 16516/32845
Moulsecoomb and Bevendean (Worst) 8198/32845

Average rent in Lewes

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Lewes

If you are thinking of moving to Lewes, 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?