Is Portland, Dorset a nice place to live?

Is Portland a nice place to live or is Portland rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Portland 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 Portland truly a nice place to live, or are Chickerell, Dorchester and Weymouth a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Portland?

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 Portland. 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
Southill 40
Isle of Portland 20
Fortuneswell 20
Lanehouse 19
Castletown 19
Radipole 18
Southlands 16
Southwell 8
Charlestown 4
Bill Of Portland 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Portland. 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 Portland 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 Upwey & Broadwey ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Upwey & Broadwey (Best) 28299/32845
West Purbeck 27904/32845
Crossways 25916/32845
Chickerell 23317/32845
Littlemoor & Preston 20950/32845
Radipole 20754/32845
Rodwell & Wyke 19997/32845
Portland 17600/32845
Westham 15632/32845
Melcombe Regis (Worst) 6870/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sherborne, a hideously deranged town that looks great from afar

Your Health in Portland

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

Town Very Bad Bad
New Forest 1.08% 3.81%
East Devon 1.13% 3.99%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Crossways (Best) 22141/32845
West Purbeck 20448/32845
Chickerell 13231/32845
Upwey & Broadwey 12134/32845
Radipole 11422/32845
Littlemoor & Preston 9598/32845
Rodwell & Wyke 9183/32845
Portland 7942/32845
Westham 6062/32845
Melcombe Regis (Worst) 1227/32845
Reader Opinion:

The Isle of Portland: The jewel in Dorset's butt cheeks

Deprivation in Portland

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 Portland. 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
Crossways (Best) 21201/32845
Upwey & Broadwey 19755/32845
West Purbeck 18437/32845
Chickerell 18355/32845
Littlemoor & Preston 17564/32845
Radipole 17473/32845
Rodwell & Wyke 12931/32845
Portland 10048/32845
Westham 8823/32845
Melcombe Regis (Worst) 3293/32845

Average rent in Portland

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Portland

If you are thinking of moving to Portland, 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?