Is Luton, Bedfordshire a nice place to live?

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

What are the crime levels like in Luton?

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 Luton. 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
Round Green 326
Biscot 289
Bury Park 280
Hart Hill 265
Park Street 183
Farley Hill 23
Wandon End 12
Aley Green 9
Caddington 2
Chiltern Green 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Luton. 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 Luton 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 Harpenden North ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Harpenden North (Best) 26085/32845
Wigmore 19505/32845
Caddington 17104/32845
Dallow 12247/32845
Biscot 11441/32845
Round Green 9311/32845
High Town 7952/32845
Farley 6879/32845
Crawley 6582/32845
South (Worst) 5546/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sleezy old Letchworth. Dear oh dear!

Your Health in Luton

If you are thinking of moving to Luton, 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 Luton 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 (Luton) 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 Luton. 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 Luton. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

Ward Average rank in England
Harpenden North (Best) 31796/32845
Caddington 22756/32845
Wigmore 16541/32845
Round Green 15672/32845
Crawley 13530/32845
High Town 12046/32845
Dallow 11120/32845
South 10102/32845
Biscot 9724/32845
Farley (Worst) 7254/32845
Reader Opinion:

Loathsome Luton!

Deprivation in Luton

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 Luton. 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
Harpenden North (Best) 30844/32845
Caddington 20083/32845
Wigmore 19316/32845
Crawley 13615/32845
Round Green 13510/32845
High Town 10107/32845
South 8235/32845
Dallow 7514/32845
Biscot 6980/32845
Farley (Worst) 6155/32845

Average rent in Luton

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Luton

If you are thinking of moving to Luton, 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?