West St Leonards
Hastings 010 · 6 sub-areas · 11,057 residents
Hastings 010 is a settled residential area within Hastings, home to around 11,000 people and skewing noticeably older than most UK neighbourhoods. A typical two-bedroom flat lets for about £897 a month — well below the UK median for a 2-bed — though rents are absorbing a meaningful share of local take-home pay. Owner-occupation is high, and the area has a distinctly established, community feel.
West St Leonards is a settled residential pocket of Hastings. The bigger gravitational centre is London, around 94 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 West St Leonards?
Greenspace is on the doorstep — a park or playing field is within walking distance of most homes; Crime sits around the national average — neither a notable concern nor a notable selling point; rents are roughly in line with the national norm, at around £1,008 a month for a typical home; gigabit broadband is effectively universal.
Generated from the latest May 2026 data · refreshed automatically
Figures are aggregated across 6 sub-areas — population-weighted means for rates, sums for counts. Sources cited beneath each section.
West St Leonards in Hastings
Living in West St Leonards
This part of Hastings has a noticeably older, more settled character than you'd find in much of the South East. Around a quarter of residents are aged 65 or over — well above the national norm — and nearly seven in ten households own their home, giving the area a stable, rooted quality that's rare this close to the coast.
The cost of living is one of the genuine draws. A two-bedroom home runs around £900 a month, which is substantially below the South East average and considerably less than you'd pay in commuter towns closer to London. That said, the rent-to-income ratio here still sits above 50%, which reflects the fact that local salaries are modest — the median resident earns around £29,000 a year — rather than rents being especially low in absolute terms.
The population is predominantly UK-born (around 90%) with a low ethnic diversity index of 15, making this one of the more homogeneous areas in the South East. Single-person households make up nearly a third of all homes, and couples with children account for just over one in six — so this isn't primarily family territory, though families are present. The degree-holding share sits at 28%, roughly in line with national averages but lower than the professional commuter towns of Kent and Surrey.
Practically speaking, the nearest rail station is under a kilometre away on foot — roughly a ten-minute walk — connecting to the wider network. Most residents drive: nearly six in ten commute by car, and only 4% use public transport for work. If you're weighing up sub-areas or specific streets within Hastings 010, see the streets and sub-areas below for more.
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Frequently asked
- Is Hastings 010 a nice place to live?
- It depends on what you're after. It's settled, affordable relative to the South East, and has a strong owner-occupier community. The trade-off is that school quality is well below the national average, crime sits slightly above the UK norm, and the London commute at around 94 minutes is long. For older residents or remote workers, it stacks up well; for young families or London commuters, less so.
- What is the rent in Hastings 010?
- A typical one-bedroom flat runs around £697 a month, a two-bedroom around £897, and a three-bedroom around £1,100. These figures are neighbourhood-level estimates scaled from local sale prices against the official Hastings-wide rental data. Rents rose around 2.5% in the past year.
- Is Hastings 010 safe?
- The crime rate is 85 per 1,000 residents a year — slightly above the UK average of around 80. Hastings overall has higher recorded crime than most of the South East, and this neighbourhood broadly mirrors the town's pattern rather than bucking it in either direction. Anti-social behaviour and theft tend to be the dominant categories.
- What's the commute from Hastings 010 to the nearest major city?
- The rail station is roughly a ten-minute walk away, but the journey times are long. London takes around 94 minutes by public transport. That makes daily commuting to London demanding; most residents here drive locally or work from home, with around 27% doing so.
- Who lives in Hastings 010?
- Predominantly older, settled owner-occupiers. Nearly a quarter of residents are 65 or over, and the 50–64 group is the largest working-age cohort. Single-person households account for nearly a third of homes. It's not a neighbourhood with a strong young-professional or family concentration — it skews retired and established.
- What schools are near Hastings 010?
- There are 47 schools within typical catchment distance, but only around 26% are rated Good or Outstanding — well below the national figure of approximately 89%. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is about 3.5 km away. Families should research individual school catchments carefully before deciding, as quality varies considerably across the area.
- How does the cost of buying a home in Hastings 010 compare?
- The median house price is around £285,000, and the years-to-deposit ratio sits at 4.9 — meaning a typical buyer could save a deposit in under five years at average savings rates. That's notably more achievable than in most of the South East, where deposit timelines stretch considerably longer.