Ashford
Village · 313 residents
64Good
Good · better than 5 in 10 villages
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- Less recorded crime than is typical: 35 per 1,000 people a year against 100
- Transport scores 71, well above the typical 60
- Food & drink scores 70, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Flood risk: 22% of the area is in the highest flood zone, so check the street
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
- Infrastructure scores 37, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Ashford a good place to live?
Ashford scores 64/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (75) and transport (71).
It scores lowest on infrastructure (37).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Ashford in South West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Ashford
Ashford is barely a hamlet rather than a village in the conventional sense — a scatter of detached houses and a handful of terraces, the kind of place where you'd recognise a stranger's car parked on the verge. With a population that only just clears eighty, this is a spot defined by what it isn't: no parade of shops, no high street to speak of, just houses and the roads connecting them to somewhere bigger.
The housing picture tells you most of what you need to know about who ends up here. Detached homes dominate the sales mix, almost everything trades freehold, and the median price of £315,000 sits close to the national median but comfortably above the regional and North Devon norms — around 9% pricier than the wider district. Detached houses specifically fetch £585,000 against a national detached average of £420,000, which points to larger, more established properties rather than an entry-level market. There's very little turnover here — under 2% annually — so a "for sale" board is a rare enough sight that neighbours will notice it before the portal listing goes live. With only two transport stops recorded and no rail station in the picture, this isn't a place you'd choose for a commute; it suits people who've already arranged their lives around driving, or who work from home.
Green space is a single, small entry — under a fifth of a hectare — so this isn't a village built around a park or common; the room to roam here comes from the surrounding countryside rather than any managed public ground. The safety picture rewards a closer look rather than a glance: the overall grade sits solidly in the B+ band alongside affordability, housing and transport, but crime is worth pausing on. Three incidents in twelve months sounds negligible in isolation, and at this population size even a handful of events can swing the percentages sharply — violence and sexual offences account for over half of the local breakdown, which looks alarming as a share but reflects a very small absolute number rather than a pattern of danger. Take the safety grade as broadly reassuring, with the caveat that small-place statistics are noisy by nature.