Is Shefford, Bedfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Shefford a nice place to live or is Shefford rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Shefford 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 Shefford truly a nice place to live, or are Arlesey, Biggleswade and Stotfold a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Shefford?

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 Shefford. 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
Campton 14
Henlow 12
Shefford 11
Lower Stondon 4
Holme 3
Chicksands 3
Langford 2
Southill 2
Upper Gravenhurst 1
Ireland 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Shefford. 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 Shefford 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 Stotfold and Langford ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Stotfold and Langford (Best) 27586/32845
Silsoe and Shillington 27138/32845
Arlesey 25900/32845
Arbury 22245/32845
Biggleswade South 21731/32845
Shefford 21682/32845
Biggleswade North 20499/32845
Cadwell 19623/32845
Letchworth Grange 19615/32845
Letchworth Wilbury (Worst) 17756/32845
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Your Health in Shefford

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Luton 1.2% 3.73%
Central Bedfordshire (Shefford) 0.84% 3.02%
Bedford 0.98% 3.55%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Arbury (Best) 30164/32845
Stotfold and Langford 29936/32845
Silsoe and Shillington 29834/32845
Cadwell 29246/32845
Arlesey 27383/32845
Shefford 25284/32845
Biggleswade South 22658/32845
Biggleswade North 21506/32845
Letchworth Wilbury 21225/32845
Letchworth Grange (Worst) 20041/32845

Deprivation in Shefford

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 Shefford. 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
Stotfold and Langford (Best) 28887/32845
Silsoe and Shillington 27095/32845
Arbury 26995/32845
Arlesey 26766/32845
Shefford 25376/32845
Biggleswade South 22509/32845
Cadwell 20128/32845
Biggleswade North 19978/32845
Letchworth Grange 18494/32845
Letchworth Wilbury (Worst) 17913/32845

Average rent in Shefford

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Shefford

If you are thinking of moving to Shefford, 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?