Is Preston, Lancashire a nice place to live?

Is Preston a nice place to live or is Preston rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Preston 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 Preston truly a nice place to live, or are Leyland, Longridge and Penwortham a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Preston?

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 Preston. 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
Fulwood 182
Holme Slack 152
Brookfield 136
Ribbleton 112
Frenchwood 79
Lower Penwortham 75
Cadley 74
Fishwick 68
Walton-le-Dale 48
Higher Penwortham 23

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Preston. 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 Preston 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 Garrison ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Garrison (Best) 22410/32845
Howick & Priory 22216/32845
Greyfriars 19726/32845
Cadley 11459/32845
Ashton 8204/32845
Deepdale 6498/32845
Fishwick & Frenchwood 6116/32845
City Centre 5873/32845
Plungington 5711/32845
St Matthew's (Worst) 867/32845
Reader Opinion:

Chorley the arse crack of Satan's drug dealer

Your Health in Preston

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Blackburn with Darwen 1.58% 5.71%
Preston (Preston) 1.32% 4.74%
Chorley 1.22% 4.31%
South Ribble 1.03% 4.1%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Howick & Priory (Best) 19932/32845
Greyfriars 17493/32845
Garrison 12022/32845
Cadley 9928/32845
Ashton 8068/32845
Deepdale 5281/32845
Plungington 5256/32845
Fishwick & Frenchwood 4752/32845
City Centre 3025/32845
St Matthew's (Worst) 2462/32845
Reader Opinion:

Preston, Lancashire

Deprivation in Preston

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 Preston. 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
Howick & Priory (Best) 29113/32845
Greyfriars 26081/32845
Garrison 21673/32845
Cadley 14762/32845
Ashton 12453/32845
Plungington 7259/32845
City Centre 4987/32845
Deepdale 4581/32845
Fishwick & Frenchwood 4192/32845
St Matthew's (Worst) 1799/32845

Average rent in Preston

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Preston

If you are thinking of moving to Preston, 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?