Crime, Deprivation and House Prices Around a Postcode

For England, four official sources answer most questions about a neighbourhood: police.uk street-level crime, the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and Census 2021. All are published under the Open Government Licence, but they differ in date, in the smallest area they describe and in what they leave out.

Approximate, by design. Each crime's location is moved to the nearest point on a fixed list of anonymous map points: the centre of a street, a public place such as a park, or a commercial premises. Each point covers at least eight postal addresses or none, so one point can carry crimes from several nearby streets.

• Dates are given as a month and year only, and police reference numbers are replaced by an anonymous ID.
• The list of map points was made in 2012 and refreshed in 2022.
• Forces place their records with different accuracy: data.police.uk gives estimates from 60% to 97%.
• Crime and anti-social behaviour cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland. On 9 November 2026 the data ran from October 2023 to September 2026.

So count crimes over a few hundred metres, not one street. Expect busy places such as a high street or a station to carry more than the homes beside them, and rates per resident to look high in town centres, where most victims and offenders do not live.

Some forces have months missing, and one has none at all. In data.police.uk's changelog up to the September 2026 release, Greater Manchester Police has no crime, outcome or stop and search data available, and British Transport Police and Gloucestershire Constabulary had crime data not provided for most months of 2026.

Other forces miss a month now and then and supply it later, so the changelog lists both missing months and refreshes. Before comparing areas, check it for the force covering each postcode: a gap makes an area look safer than it is. Outcome data is not provided by British Transport Police or the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Use the same months, the same radius and a rate instead of a raw count. Divide recorded crimes by the residents counted in Census 2021 to get a rate per 1,000 people a year, keep anti-social behaviour apart from crime, and look at the categories as well as the total, because one category can drive it.

• Use 12 months or more: a single month moves a lot from one to the next.
• Compare with the council and with England, on the same basis.
• Name any missing months for the force instead of filling them in.
• data.police.uk sorts crimes into 14 categories, such as violence and sexual offences, so you can show which kinds are common.

The English Indices of Deprivation 2025, published by MHCLG on 30 October 2025, rank all 33,755 neighbourhoods (lower layer super output areas) in England from most to least deprived. Each has about 1,500 residents on average. Decile 1 is the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods, and decile 10 the least deprived.

• It measures relative deprivation: a rank against other neighbourhoods, not an absolute level.
• It describes areas, not people. Many people who are not deprived live in deprived areas, and many deprived people live elsewhere.
• It uses the 2021 Census neighbourhoods and new data and methods, so it is less directly comparable with the 2019 edition.
• It covers England only.

Price Paid Data lists residential property sales in England and Wales that are sold for value and lodged with HM Land Registry for registration, back to January 1995. It is updated on the 20th working day of each month. It leaves out sales not for value, such as gifts, discounted Right to Buy sales, court orders and transfers on divorce.

• Standard price paid (category A): a single residential property sold for value. Use these for typical prices.
• Additional price paid (category B): repossessions, buy-to-lets identifiable by a mortgage, sales to companies and other non-private buyers, and properties of type other. Identified since October 2013.
• Property types are detached, semi-detached, terraced (including end of terrace), flats or maisonettes, and other. Bungalows are not shown separately.
• Each monthly file holds the transactions received that month, so a sale can appear in a later month than it completed and the newest months look thin.

For a typical price, take the median of standard sales by property type over 12 to 24 months. A handful of sales gives an unstable median, and one new block of flats can pull an area's figure a long way, so show the number of sales beside every median.

Census 2021 counts who lived in England and Wales on 21 March 2021, down to small output areas. Nomis publishes its topic summaries, each on a single subject, and its ready-made tables, which cross two or more subjects, such as accommodation type by car or van availability. Most neighbourhood questions need only four or five tables.

• TS001 usual residents and TS041 households: how many people and homes.
• TS054 tenure: owned, social rented or private rented.
• TS007A age in five-year bands.
• TS045 car or van availability and TS044 accommodation type, from detached houses to flats in a converted building.

Match the area to the question. For one home, a few hundred metres shows the street and its surroundings; for a shop or a development site, a walk or drive time area shows who can actually get there. Compare every figure with the council and with England, because a number on its own says little.

• Build the area from whole output areas, not slices of them. A best-fit method counts an output area when its population-weighted centre falls inside the area.
• Use the same months for every area you compare, and say which months they are.
• For catchments, see our guide to sizing a store catchment with open data.

Two Bozmaps tools use these datasets. The live property risk check gives crime, deprivation and recent sales for one address. The area profile describes a whole area: Census 2021 residents, households, tenure and age, deprivation, house sales and recorded crime, with the Census, deprivation and prices compared with the council.

• Crime: the risk check counts police records within 250 m over the latest 12 months, with anti-social behaviour counted apart. When data.police.uk is missing months for the force, the check names them and gives no crime band.
• Deprivation: the neighbourhood's IoD2025 decile and its seven domain deciles; the area profile adds the share of residents in the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods, against the council.
• Sales: standard sales at the postcode over 24 months to the last month in the data, with the postcode sector median. The area profile's medians also use standard sales only.
• Area: the area profile counts whole output areas by their population-weighted centres, 1,000 m around a site unless you set another distance.
• Limits: crime and sales cover England and Wales, deprivation England only. A postcode is placed at its centre.

The area profile runs on the Bozmaps engine, so on this site we run it for you: request a site report. The property risk check page explains the live check.