Is Wakefield, Yorkshire a nice place to live?

Is Wakefield a nice place to live or is Wakefield rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Wakefield 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 Wakefield truly a nice place to live, or are Normanton, Ossett and Rothwell a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Wakefield?

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 Wakefield. 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
Newton Hill 208
Alverthorpe 124
Belle Vue 77
Agbrigg 77
Calder 71
Lofthouse Gate 56
Heath Common 52
Sandal Magna 46
Portobello 42
Sandal 42

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Wakefield. 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 Wakefield 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 Wrenthorpe and Outwood West ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West (Best) 16577/32845
Stanley and Outwood East 16204/32845
Horbury and South Ossett 15902/32845
Ardsley & Robin Hood 12209/32845
Featherstone 10900/32845
Wakefield South 10679/32845
Normanton 8228/32845
Wakefield North 7080/32845
Wakefield East 6468/32845
Wakefield West (Worst) 6390/32845
Reader Opinion:

Rothwell: God's Idea of a Joke

Your Health in Wakefield

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

Town Very Bad Bad
Leeds 1.22% 4.19%
Bradford 1.33% 4.55%
Wakefield (Wakefield) 1.7% 5.99%
Kirklees 1.25% 4.5%

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

Ward Average rank in England
Wakefield South (Best) 14572/32845
Ardsley & Robin Hood 13707/32845
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West 13504/32845
Stanley and Outwood East 12981/32845
Horbury and South Ossett 12516/32845
Normanton 9556/32845
Wakefield North 8918/32845
Wakefield West 8326/32845
Featherstone 8022/32845
Wakefield East (Worst) 7157/32845
Reader Opinion:

Wakefield: a cultural wilderness of apish men and women in white stilettos

Deprivation in Wakefield

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 Wakefield. 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
Stanley and Outwood East (Best) 20073/32845
Wrenthorpe and Outwood West 19553/32845
Ardsley & Robin Hood 17238/32845
Horbury and South Ossett 17170/32845
Wakefield South 16656/32845
Normanton 11191/32845
Wakefield North 10466/32845
Featherstone 9919/32845
Wakefield West 9669/32845
Wakefield East (Worst) 7759/32845

Average rent in Wakefield

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

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Wakefield

If you are thinking of moving to Wakefield, 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?