Padstow
Town · 1,805 residents
69Good
Good · better than 6 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
- 30 places to eat and drink
- Transport scores 75, well above the typical 60
- Less recorded crime than is typical: 69 per 1,000 people a year against 100
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 Padstow
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Padstow a good place to live?
Padstow scores 69/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for food & drink (95) and transport (75).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Padstow in South West, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Padstow
Padstow's harbour front tells you most of what you need to know before you've read a single figure: boats stacked against stone, restaurant frontages several deep, and a pace of foot traffic that owes more to visitors than to anyone doing a school run. This is a working fishing town that long ago became a food destination too, and the two identities sit on top of each other rather than blending — the streets nearest the water feel entirely given over to eating out and browsing, while the housing thins out fast as you move inland.
The numbers back up what the harbour suggests. The median age here is 53.6, well above the national 40.4, and that single fact explains a lot: this isn't a place people move to for the commute, and there's no rail station in the picture at all. There is one school, Padstow School, a Good-rated primary academy — fine for younger families already settled here, but the absence of secondary provision or an Outstanding-rated option nearby means most families plan around it rather than because of it. Property sales lean toward terraced houses on freehold titles, sample size small but telling: a typical board on one of these streets is advertising a stone-fronted cottage, not a new estate. Prices reflect that character too — a median around £400,000, some 40% above the Cornwall-wide figure and well clear of the national median, which puts Padstow among the pricier corners of the county even though the wider income and deprivation picture (income decile 2, IMD decile 3) suggests plenty of longstanding residents aren't the ones buying at those levels.