Astley, Blackmoor & Mosley Common
Wigan 029 · 5 sub-areas · 11,335 residents
Wigan 029 is a residential area within the Wigan borough in the North West, home to around 11,300 people. A typical two-bedroom home here rents for about £686 a month, well below the UK median. Owner-occupation is unusually high, and over three in ten residents work from home.
Astley, Blackmoor & Mosley Common is a settled residential pocket of Wigan. The bigger gravitational centre is Manchester, around 65 minutes away by direct train, but most days don't require leaving — local life is what people are here for. Most homes are owner-occupied, so turnover is low and many residents have been here a long time.
Overview
What's it like to live in Astley, Blackmoor & Mosley Common?
2 parks and 2 playgrounds are within five minutes' walk, so greenspace is reliably close at hand; Transport links are limited — a car or e-bike is a practical assumption for most regular trips; rents are below the national norm, with a typical home letting at around £732 a month; gigabit broadband is effectively universal.
Generated from the latest May 2026 data · refreshed automatically
Figures are aggregated across 5 sub-areas — population-weighted means for rates, sums for counts. Sources cited beneath each section.
Astley, Blackmoor & Mosley Common in Wigan
Living in Astley, Blackmoor & Mosley Common
This part of Wigan sits firmly in owner-occupier territory. Around 77% of homes are owned outright or with a mortgage — a figure that tells you something about the settled, family-oriented character of the area. It doesn't have the churn of a student district or the transience of a city-centre rental market. People move here and stay.
Rents are genuinely low by any national measure. A two-bedroom home averages around £686 a month. Even a three-bedroom comes in at about £821 a month, which is cheaper than a one-bedroom flat in many English cities. That affordability, combined with a median sale price of around £286,000, makes this one of the more accessible areas for first-time buyers in the North West.
The population skews fairly evenly across age groups, though just over one in five residents is under 18 — a notably family-heavy profile. Couples with children make up nearly a quarter of all households. That demographic shape is reflected in the school provision: there are 46 schools within typical catchment distance, and the nearest school rated Outstanding is roughly 1.2 km away.
Car dependency is high here — around 60% of residents drive to work — and the nearest mainline rail station is roughly 3.4 km away. That said, 31% of residents work from home, which softens the practical impact of limited public transport. Broadband infrastructure is strong: gigabit-capable coverage reaches 100% of premises, with no properties falling below the minimum universal service obligation. See the streets and sub-areas below for more.
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Frequently asked
- Is Wigan 029 a nice place to live?
- It's a settled, family-oriented area with low rents and high owner-occupation — around 77% of homes are owned. It's not a lively urban neighbourhood, but if you want affordable space, good broadband, and a stable community, it delivers. The trade-off is limited public transport and a below-average share of nearby schools rated Good or Outstanding.
- What is the rent in Wigan 029?
- A one-bedroom property averages around £531 a month, a two-bedroom around £686, and a three-bedroom around £821. These are estimates scaled from council-level data using local sale prices. Rents rose roughly 7% year-on-year, but the area remains well below the UK median for comparable property sizes.
- Is Wigan 029 safe?
- The area sits in the seventh deprivation decile nationally, meaning it's less deprived than around 70% of English areas — a reasonable proxy for lower crime pressure. High owner-occupation and a settled family demographic tend to correlate with lower rates of antisocial behaviour. For street-level crime data, the Police UK crime map gives the most granular picture.
- What's the commute from Wigan 029 to Manchester?
- By public transport, Manchester takes around 62 minutes. The nearest mainline rail station is roughly 3.4 km away, so most residents drive to it rather than walking. Around 60% of residents commute by car, and nearly a third work from home — which softens the impact of the area's limited bus and rail connections.
- Who lives in Wigan 029?
- Mostly owner-occupying families — around 77% own their home and nearly a quarter of households are couples with children. The under-18 share is 21%, above typical urban averages. The area is predominantly UK-born (93%) and has relatively low ethnic diversity. About a third of adults hold a degree-level qualification.
- What schools are near Wigan 029?
- There are 46 schools within typical catchment distance. Around 41% are rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted — below the national average of roughly 89%, so it's worth checking individual school ratings and catchment boundaries carefully. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is approximately 1.2 km away.
- Is Wigan 029 good for first-time buyers?
- It's one of the more accessible areas in the North West. The median sale price is around £286,000 and a typical deposit takes about 4.5 years to save on a local income — a relatively manageable ratio. High owner-occupation (77%) suggests the area has long attracted buyers rather than renters, which tends to support stable prices.