Is Saffron Walden, Essex a nice place to live?

Is Saffron Walden a nice place to live or is Saffron Walden rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Saffron Walden 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 Saffron Walden truly a nice place to live, or are Fulbourn, Thaxted and Haverhill a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Saffron Walden?

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 Saffron Walden. 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
Saffron Walden 17
Newport 3
Ashdon 3
Great Chesterford 2
Audley End 1
Little Walden 1
Littlebury 0
Springwell 0
Little Chesterford 0
Maple End 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Saffron Walden. 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 Saffron Walden 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 Debden & Wimbish ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Debden & Wimbish (Best) 30826/32845
Stort Valley 27735/32845
Saffron Walden Shire 27121/32845
Saffron Walden Audley 26785/32845
Ashdon 24877/32845
Elsenham & Henham 23875/32845
Littlebury, Chesterford & Wenden Lofts 23822/32845
Clavering 22367/32845
Saffron Walden Castle 21861/32845
Newport (Worst) 18196/32845
Reader Opinion:

Haverhill, you would think it would be a nicer town

Your Health in Saffron Walden

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Braintree 0.93% 3.43%
Harlow 1.21% 4.15%
Cambridge 0.78% 2.85%
Uttlesford (Saffron Walden) 0.66% 2.6%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Debden & Wimbish (Best) 32431/32845
Clavering 32259/32845
Elsenham & Henham 31693/32845
Littlebury, Chesterford & Wenden Lofts 31504/32845
Ashdon 31305/32845
Stort Valley 31289/32845
Saffron Walden Audley 30113/32845
Saffron Walden Shire 29935/32845
Newport 29585/32845
Saffron Walden Castle (Worst) 27523/32845

Deprivation in Saffron Walden

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 Saffron Walden. 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
Elsenham & Henham (Best) 30274/32845
Saffron Walden Audley 29480/32845
Debden & Wimbish 29390/32845
Saffron Walden Shire 28701/32845
Newport 27607/32845
Stort Valley 25382/32845
Littlebury, Chesterford & Wenden Lofts 25094/32845
Ashdon 24968/32845
Clavering 24538/32845
Saffron Walden Castle (Worst) 24438/32845

Average rent in Saffron Walden

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Saffron Walden

If you are thinking of moving to Saffron Walden, 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?