Is Poole, Dorset a nice place to live?

Is Poole a nice place to live or is Poole rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Poole 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 Poole truly a nice place to live, or are Bournemouth, Wareham and Wimborne Minster a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Poole?

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 Poole. 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
Oakdale 86
Longfleet 69
Parkstone 64
Canford Heath 41
Lower Hamworthy 33
Waterloo 32
Creekmoor 22
Hamworthy 16
Turlin Moor 16
Lake 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Poole. 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 Poole 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 Broadstone ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Broadstone (Best) 29818/32845
Creekmoor 25928/32845
South East Purbeck 24603/32845
Canford Heath 24178/32845
Oakdale 23101/32845
Lytchett Matravers & Upton 22696/32845
Parkstone 22211/32845
Hamworthy 19605/32845
Poole Town 17056/32845
Newtown & Heatherlands (Worst) 14426/32845
Reader Opinion:

Bournemouth, quite possibly the biggest lie ever conceived.

Your Health in Poole

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Southampton 1.2% 3.89%
Isle of Wight 1.47% 5.01%
New Forest 1.08% 3.81%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Broadstone (Best) 27085/32845
Parkstone 23682/32845
South East Purbeck 22376/32845
Oakdale 19618/32845
Lytchett Matravers & Upton 19491/32845
Creekmoor 19021/32845
Canford Heath 16292/32845
Poole Town 15706/32845
Newtown & Heatherlands 14889/32845
Hamworthy (Worst) 13435/32845
Reader Opinion:

I had the misfortune of visiting Boscombe

Deprivation in Poole

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 Poole. 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
Broadstone (Best) 30867/32845
Parkstone 25572/32845
Oakdale 20962/32845
Lytchett Matravers & Upton 20235/32845
Creekmoor 19151/32845
Poole Town 18082/32845
Canford Heath 17368/32845
South East Purbeck 17181/32845
Newtown & Heatherlands 14864/32845
Hamworthy (Worst) 13690/32845

Average rent in Poole

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Poole

If you are thinking of moving to Poole, 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?