Is Tonbridge, Kent a nice place to live?

Is Tonbridge a nice place to live or is Tonbridge rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Tonbridge 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 Tonbridge truly a nice place to live, or are Royal Tunbridge Wells, Southborough and Tunbridge Wells a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Tonbridge?

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 Tonbridge. 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
Southborough 54
Cage Green 53
Tonbridge 46
Hadlow Stair 40
Higham Wood 40
Parker’s Green 17
Pittswood 14
Barden Park 6
Brook Street 6
Lower Haysden 2

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Tonbridge. 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 Tonbridge 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 Speldhurst and Bidborough ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Speldhurst and Bidborough (Best) 28703/32845
Vauxhall 21497/32845
Higham 20288/32845
Capel 19934/32845
Southborough North 17716/32845
Judd 17471/32845
Castle 15897/32845
Cage Green 15738/32845
Trench 13471/32845
Medway (Worst) 12484/32845
Reader Opinion:

Tunbridge Wells: seems posh but has a seedy underbelly

Your Health in Tonbridge

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Tonbridge and Malling (Tonbridge) 0.86% 3.09%
Sevenoaks 0.87% 3.11%
Dartford 1.03% 3.4%
Tunbridge Wells 0.78% 3.09%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Speldhurst and Bidborough (Best) 31118/32845
Capel 28016/32845
Castle 27132/32845
Vauxhall 26843/32845
Judd 25452/32845
Southborough North 25220/32845
Higham 24831/32845
Medway 23801/32845
Cage Green 23383/32845
Trench (Worst) 17775/32845
Reader Opinion:

Tonbridge: where chavs and toffs come face-to-face

Deprivation in Tonbridge

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 Tonbridge. 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
Speldhurst and Bidborough (Best) 29918/32845
Southborough North 25964/32845
Higham 25098/32845
Vauxhall 24446/32845
Castle 24005/32845
Capel 21751/32845
Cage Green 21748/32845
Judd 21680/32845
Medway 20477/32845
Trench (Worst) 14477/32845

Average rent in Tonbridge

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Tonbridge

If you are thinking of moving to Tonbridge, 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?