Is Shrewsbury, Shropshire a nice place to live?

Is Shrewsbury a nice place to live or is Shrewsbury rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Shrewsbury 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 Shrewsbury truly a nice place to live, or are Much Wenlock, Wellington and Wem a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Shrewsbury?

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 Shrewsbury. 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
Castle Fields 98
Spring Gdns 98
Underdale 98
Shrewsbury 83
Cherry Orchard 83
Frankwell 53
Gravelhill 53
Belle Vue 44
Monkmoor 41
Porthill 16

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Shrewsbury. 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 Shrewsbury 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 Bayston Hill, Column and Sutton ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Bayston Hill, Column and Sutton (Best) 27296/32845
Radbrook 25281/32845
Abbey 24959/32845
Porthill 23383/32845
Belle Vue 22457/32845
Monkmoor 22398/32845
Underdale 21137/32845
Bagley 16755/32845
Quarry and Coton Hill 13466/32845
Castlefields and Ditherington (Worst) 9865/32845
Reader Opinion:

Oswestry: their trainers and fake Fred Perry polo shirts are caked in sweat & kebabs

Your Health in Shrewsbury

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Cheshire East 1.06% 3.85%
Shropshire (Shrewsbury) 1.13% 3.91%
Telford and Wrekin 1.42% 4.81%
Wrexham 1.37% 4.84%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Radbrook (Best) 25944/32845
Porthill 23049/32845
Belle Vue 21427/32845
Abbey 21232/32845
Bayston Hill, Column and Sutton 20289/32845
Bagley 18159/32845
Underdale 17234/32845
Quarry and Coton Hill 16710/32845
Castlefields and Ditherington 14637/32845
Monkmoor (Worst) 10751/32845
Reader Opinion:

Wellington, Telford: A depressive hole of wasters

Deprivation in Shrewsbury

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 Shrewsbury. 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
Radbrook (Best) 27710/32845
Abbey 24604/32845
Bayston Hill, Column and Sutton 24562/32845
Porthill 24352/32845
Belle Vue 21164/32845
Bagley 19886/32845
Quarry and Coton Hill 17508/32845
Underdale 16450/32845
Monkmoor 12897/32845
Castlefields and Ditherington (Worst) 12721/32845

Average rent in Shrewsbury

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Shrewsbury

If you are thinking of moving to Shrewsbury, 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?