Honiton
Town · 11,310 residents
74Very good
Very good · better than 8 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: 60 per 1,000 people a year against 100
- 1 GP practice within a short walk
Check before you view
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Honiton
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Honiton a good place to live?
Honiton scores 74/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as very good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (81) and health (72).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Honiton in South West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Honiton
Honiton's high street still runs on independent shops and market-town rhythms rather than chain retail, and the terraced cottages lining the roads off it give the place a settled, older feel rather than a commuter-new one. The median age here sits close to eight years above the national figure, and you notice it in the pace: fewer buggies, more dog leads, shops that keep proper lunch hours.
If you need the train, Honiton Rail Station puts you on the line without a car, though the town's own school picture is mixed enough to weigh carefully — Littletown Primary Academy and Honiton Primary School are both rated Good, but Honiton Community College's secondary progress score sits below the national average, and Ofsted hasn't rated it. Housing leans firmly towards older terraced stock bought outright: the sales mix is dominated by freehold terraces, and at a median of £235,000 the town is markedly cheaper than East Devon overall, roughly a quarter below the district figure, and well under the national median too. Detached and semi-detached homes here also undercut what you'd pay for the same type nationally, though flats buck the trend and sell for barely half the national median — a sign of a thin, older flat stock rather than a bargain.
Green space is genuinely woven into daily life — 38 separate patches covering over 22 hectares for a town of just over eight thousand people is a generous ratio, well above the national average per head, so the Saturday habit here tends to be a dog walk or a garden centre trip rather than a drive out. Eating out is modest rather than varied, which matches the grade pattern: health, housing and nightlife all score strongly above the national average, safety and health likewise sit at the top of the scale, yet schools land only mid-table and the crime trend is quietly marked as worsening even from a low base, with violence and sexual offences accounting for nearly half of all recorded crime. That's the one thread worth pulling before you commit — the town reads as safe and comfortable on the surface grades, but the direction of travel on crime is the wrinkle underneath.