Is Oldbury, West Midlands a nice place to live?

Is Oldbury a nice place to live or is Oldbury rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Oldbury 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 Oldbury truly a nice place to live, or are Blackheath, Smethwick and West Bromwich a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Oldbury?

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 Oldbury. 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
Mayer’s Green 172
Lambert’s End 154
Black Lake 151
Grand Union Canal 133
Causeway Green 126
Portway 117
Langley 116
Oldbury 107
Round’s Green 103
Tat Bank 101

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Oldbury. 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 Oldbury 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 Smethwick ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Smethwick (Best) 15486/32845
Oldbury 14911/32845
Bristnall 14813/32845
Tividale 13039/32845
Wednesbury South 11799/32845
Langley 11216/32845
Great Bridge 10051/32845
Greets Green and Lyng 9905/32845
Tipton Green 9902/32845
Hateley Heath (Worst) 8749/32845
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Your Health in Oldbury

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Sandwell (Oldbury) 1.8% 5.9%
Walsall 1.68% 5.56%
Dudley 1.42% 5.09%
Wolverhampton 1.66% 5.53%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Tividale (Best) 9686/32845
Bristnall 7156/32845
Smethwick 6848/32845
Langley 6693/32845
Oldbury 6620/32845
Greets Green and Lyng 5693/32845
Wednesbury South 5683/32845
Tipton Green 5500/32845
Hateley Heath 5476/32845
Great Bridge (Worst) 5353/32845
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Deprivation in Oldbury

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 Oldbury. 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
Tividale (Best) 10833/32845
Bristnall 7658/32845
Oldbury 6899/32845
Tipton Green 6573/32845
Langley 6243/32845
Wednesbury South 5382/32845
Smethwick 5317/32845
Great Bridge 4938/32845
Hateley Heath 4527/32845
Greets Green and Lyng (Worst) 3571/32845

Average rent in Oldbury

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Oldbury

If you are thinking of moving to Oldbury, 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?