Is Swaffham, Norfolk a nice place to live?

Is Swaffham a nice place to live or is Swaffham rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Swaffham 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 Swaffham truly a nice place to live, or are Dereham, Downham Market and Watton a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Swaffham?

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 Swaffham. 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
Necton 4
Ivy Todd 4
Great Cressingham 2
Sporle 1
Little Dunham 1
Ashill 1
North Pickenham 0
Cockley Cley 0
Great Dunham 0
Great Fransham 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Swaffham. 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 Swaffham 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 Airfield ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Airfield (Best) 31393/32845
Necton 29204/32845
Wissey 28680/32845
Lincoln 27816/32845
Nar Valley 26713/32845
Launditch 26666/32845
Ashill 26542/32845
Watton 25281/32845
Bedingfeld 24188/32845
Swaffham (Worst) 19456/32845
Reader Opinion:

Dereham - More like Drearam. Stay away if you're not a local

Your Health in Swaffham

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

Town Very Bad Bad
King`s Lynn and West Norfolk 1.31% 4.8%
Breckland (Swaffham) 1.18% 4.31%
East Cambridgeshire 0.85% 3.12%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Lincoln (Best) 20361/32845
Wissey 17594/32845
Bedingfeld 17496/32845
Launditch 16462/32845
Nar Valley 16215/32845
Watton 15910/32845
Ashill 14469/32845
Airfield 14414/32845
Necton 13205/32845
Swaffham (Worst) 10035/32845
Reader Opinion:

Loughborough - "Luffbra" - it's sh*t me duck

Deprivation in Swaffham

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 Swaffham. 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
Lincoln (Best) 17455/32845
Airfield 17161/32845
Watton 16173/32845
Bedingfeld 14693/32845
Necton 14238/32845
Ashill 14130/32845
Wissey 14029/32845
Launditch 12546/32845
Swaffham 12162/32845
Nar Valley (Worst) 12115/32845

Average rent in Swaffham

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Swaffham

If you are thinking of moving to Swaffham, 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?