Grange-over-Sands
Town · 4,101 residents
70Very good
Very good · better than 7 in 10 towns
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
- Affordability scores 76, well above the typical 60
- 17 places to eat and drink
Check before you view
- Flood risk: 32% 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
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Grange-over-Sands
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Grange-over-Sands a good place to live?
Grange-over-Sands scores 70/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as very good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (89) and affordability (76).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Grange-over-Sands in North West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Grange-over-Sands
Grange-over-Sands has the look of a place built for a slower pace of life: Victorian villas along the promenade, a median age nudging 61, and a high street that feels more like a market town's than a village's. It attracts retirees and downsizers more than young families, and the streets carry that quiet, well-kept, slightly formal air that seaside towns of this era often do — this isn't a place with a late-night crowd, and the population density backs that up, running at a fraction of the national average.
The practicals fit that same story. Grange-over-Sands Rail Station and Kents Bank Rail Station both sit in the village, so you can reach the wider West Coast network without a car, but with only two schools locally — including Grange CofE Primary School, rated Good — this reads as a place people retire to or raise older children in, not necessarily where they start a family from scratch. Housing leans firmly toward Detached freehold homes, and at a median of around £301,000 you're paying roughly 38% more than the wider Westmorland and Furness average, though still a shade under the national median — this is a village priced for the view and the quiet, not for London-style scarcity. The market itself is settled rather than dynamic: prices have barely moved this past year, and that flat trend looks set to continue rather than reverse.
Green space is threaded through daily life here — 22 separate pockets of it, even if the total acreage is modest by rural Cumbrian standards — and the promenade and Morecambe Bay frontage do a lot of the weekend work without needing much else. Health outcomes score exceptionally well, which tracks with an older population that has chosen this specific bay for the air and the pace, and the area's council tax band spread suggests a broadly comfortable, mid-to-upper income base rather than an ostentatious one. The one figure worth sitting with is crime: the overall safety grade is strong, and the rate is materially lower than the parent authority's, but violence and sexual offences make up 44% of the (small) total caseload — in a population this size, that's a handful of incidents skewing the percentage, not a pattern to be alarmed by, but worth knowing it's the single largest slice.