Swardeston
Village · 470 residents
66Good
Good · better than 6 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: 21 per 1,000 people a year against 100
- 52% of residents live within five minutes of a park
Check before you view
- Transport scores 31, below the typical 60
- Health scores 36, below the typical 60
- Food & drink scores 39, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Swardeston
Map outline: Official built-up area
Is Swardeston a good place to live?
Swardeston scores 66/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for safety (89) and environment (86).
It scores lowest on transport (31) and health (36).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Swardeston in East of England, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Swardeston
Detached houses on generous plots, hedges rather than fences, cars parked on gravel drives rather than the street — Swardeston reads as the kind of village people move to rather than pass through. With a population barely into the fifties, this isn't somewhere with a high street pulse; it's somewhere with a lane, a church, and space between neighbours.
The numbers back up that first impression. A median age approaching 47 tells you this is a settled, established community rather than a young one, and the housing stock matches: detached homes dominate, freehold is the norm, and there wasn't a single new-build sale recorded. A For Sale board here is almost certainly on a house that's been in one family for a while, not a fresh estate. On price, the median of £345,000 sits comfortably above South Norfolk as a whole — roughly 17% pricier than the district benchmark — which places Swardeston among the more expensive corners of an already-comfortable district, consistent with an income decile of 7 and a deprivation decile of 8 (meaning less deprived than most of the country). Transport is the honest caveat: the connectivity and transport grades are middling, so this reads as a driving village rather than a rail-commuter one, and anyone anchoring their day to a station timetable should weigh that carefully.
Green space is modest in scale — a handful of plots totalling under three hectares — which fits a village rather than a town: enough for a walk with the dog, not a destination park. Day-to-day errands and eating out will mean a short drive rather than a stroll, and that's the trade you're making for the quiet. Safety is where Swardeston quietly stands out: the overall grade sits at B+, but safety alone is graded A+, and the crime trend is flat rather than worsening. The raw crime figures are tiny in absolute terms, and even the ones counted lean toward the kind of low-level violence and anti-social behaviour categories you see recorded once and then not again in a place this size — not the pattern of an unsafe place, just the statistical texture of very few incidents.