Is Maidstone, Kent a nice place to live?

Is Maidstone a nice place to live or is Maidstone rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Maidstone 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 Maidstone truly a nice place to live, or are Crayford, Snodland and West Malling a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Maidstone?

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 Maidstone. 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
Maidstone 188
Penenden Heath 169
Harbourland 121
Fant 121
Allington 79
Tovil 58
Sandling 40
Abbey Gate 40
Weavering Street 40
Boxley 27

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Maidstone. 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 Maidstone 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 Allington ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Allington (Best) 29008/32845
Boxley 22512/32845
East 18115/32845
South 17963/32845
Heath 16236/32845
Bridge 15575/32845
North 15492/32845
Fant 8998/32845
Shepway North 8808/32845
High Street (Worst) 5897/32845
Reader Opinion:

Maidstone - The biggest moving mistake of my life

Your Health in Maidstone

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Medway 1.09% 3.94%
Maidstone (Maidstone) 0.97% 3.43%
Gravesham 1.1% 4.03%
Tonbridge and Malling 0.86% 3.09%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Allington (Best) 27477/32845
Boxley 27320/32845
South 25296/32845
East 23826/32845
Bridge 22007/32845
Heath 21072/32845
North 20524/32845
Fant 19863/32845
Shepway North 16353/32845
High Street (Worst) 14654/32845
Reader Opinion:

Slade Green, infested with dirty, Burberry wearing misfits

Deprivation in Maidstone

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 Maidstone. 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
Allington (Best) 30700/32845
Boxley 25566/32845
South 24929/32845
East 21586/32845
Heath 20893/32845
Bridge 20557/32845
North 17713/32845
Fant 15874/32845
Shepway North 11862/32845
High Street (Worst) 9973/32845

Average rent in Maidstone

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Maidstone

If you are thinking of moving to Maidstone, 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?