Is Ely, Cambridgeshire a nice place to live?

Is Ely a nice place to live or is Ely a bit rough? For us there are a number of factors that make any town a nice place to live, like a low crime rate, low levels of deprivation, the good health of the residents, rent affordability and excellent wages. In this article we will see if Ely meets our criteria.

How likely are you to a victim of crime in Ely?

The English Indices of Deprivation has a crime element for Ely. 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. Naturally rural areas have less crime than urban areas, but for this part of our town assessment we've looked at the 10 wards nearest to the centre of Ely. To pass this section, 8 out of 10 of these wards need to be above the English national average rank of 16422.5

#	Ward	Crime Rank
1	Fordham & Isleham	30201
2	Sutton	27750
3	Haddenham	26294
4	Ely West	25783
5	Stretham	25191
6	Ely North	25085
7	Soham North	24904
8	Ely East	24403
9	Soham South	23702
10	Littleport	22743

Is Ely a healthy place to live?

If you are thinking of moving to Ely, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. For this section of the town assessment, we've examined government health statistics from the 2021 Census General Health question and the Indices of Multiple Deprivation's health element.The table below shows what percentage of Ely residents answered saying their health was either bad or very bad. To pass this section, the local authority has to have a percentage score less than or equal to 7%.

Local Authority	%
East Cambridgeshire (Ely)	4.14
West Suffolk	4.36
King's Lynn and West Norfolk	5.93
Fenland	6.38

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Ely. 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 LSOA rank for 10 wards nearest to the centre of Ely. To pass this section, 8 out of 10 of these wards need to be above the English national average rank of 16422.5.

#	Ward	Health Rank
1	Ely North (Best)	29503
2	Stretham	29377
3	Ely East	29088
4	Sutton	28897
5	Ely West	28480
6	Haddenham	28453
7	Soham North	26708
8	Fordham & Isleham	26040
9	Soham South	25170
10	Littleport (Worst)	21907

Is Ely rough?

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average rank for 10 wards in and around Ely. 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. To pass this section as the town assessment, 8 out of 10 wards must have a ranking higher than the English average of 16422.5

#	Ward	Deprivation Rank
1	Ely North	25849
2	Sutton	25495
3	Ely West	25260
4	Stretham	25240
5	Haddenham	25063
6	Ely East	23673
7	Fordham & Isleham	23669
8	Soham North	21449
9	Soham South	19946
10	Littleport	16809

How affordable are the rents in Ely?

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These market rental statistics are dated September 2023. We have used the median rental figure for this assessment as we believe this is a more realistic figure than the average (mean) that can be skewed by artificially low and high rents. To pass this section, Ely rents for each size property have to be less than 5% more than the median rent for Cambridgeshire.

Beds	East Cambridgeshire	Cambridgeshire
1	£625	£795
2	£750	£850
3	£925	£1050
4	£1300	£1500

How much can I earn in Ely per week?

If you are thinking of moving to Ely, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. Every year the government publishes statistics on gross weekly pay, these figures are for September 2023. To pass this section Ely's local authority needs to be in first or second place compared to the three nearest local authorities.

#	Local Authority	Median Pw
1	East Cambridgeshire (Ely)	£704.40
2	Fenland	£679.00
3	King's Lynn and West Norfolk	£650.60
4	West Suffolk	£637.80

So, is Ely a nice place to live?

Ely has passed our core town assesment with flying colours with a score of 5/5. It doesn't get any better than that!

* Probably.