Is Shaftesbury, Dorset a nice place to live?

Is Shaftesbury a nice place to live or is Shaftesbury rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Shaftesbury 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 Shaftesbury truly a nice place to live, or are Gillingham, Mere and Tisbury a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Shaftesbury?

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 Shaftesbury. 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
Ivy Cross 16
Shaftesbury 6
St James 6
Enmore Green 2
Alcester 2
Charlton 2
Donhead St Mary 2
Bittles Green 0
Cann Common 0
Cann 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Shaftesbury. 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 Shaftesbury 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 Stalbridge & Marnhull ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Stalbridge & Marnhull (Best) 31886/32845
Blackmore Vale 29024/32845
Sturminster Newton 28783/32845
Gillingham 28754/32845
Blandford 24565/32845
Beacon 24111/32845
Tisbury 23729/32845
Mere 23524/32845
Shaftesbury Town 23489/32845
Wincanton (Worst) 16788/32845
Reader Opinion:

Rochester should forget Dickens. He's dead & the town should try a new trick

Your Health in Shaftesbury

If you are thinking of moving to Shaftesbury, 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 Shaftesbury 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%
South Somerset 1.03% 3.79%
Mendip 1.01% 3.79%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Tisbury (Best) 29054/32845
Sturminster Newton 25319/32845
Mere 25135/32845
Blackmore Vale 24714/32845
Gillingham 24358/32845
Beacon 23040/32845
Shaftesbury Town 22852/32845
Stalbridge & Marnhull 22656/32845
Blandford 21908/32845
Wincanton (Worst) 19905/32845
Reader Opinion:

Sittingbourne, oh the joy

Deprivation in Shaftesbury

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 Shaftesbury. 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
Gillingham (Best) 23121/32845
Sturminster Newton 20230/32845
Blandford 20146/32845
Shaftesbury Town 18930/32845
Stalbridge & Marnhull 18841/32845
Mere 18355/32845
Wincanton 18005/32845
Blackmore Vale 17785/32845
Tisbury 17509/32845
Beacon (Worst) 15258/32845

Average rent in Shaftesbury

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Shaftesbury

If you are thinking of moving to Shaftesbury, 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?