LU1 3JF Luton

Live postcode, introduced January 1980. Ward: Central. Region: East of England.

Streets

Council tax

What each band costs in Luton in 2026-27: Band D £2,440 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

ABCDEFGH
£1,627£1,898£2,169£2,440£2,982£3,524£4,067£4,880

Homes by band in the neighbourhood around this postcode: most are in band A (74% of about 1,330 homes).

Sources: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, homes at 31 March 2026 (counts rounded to the nearest 10; some small counts withheld), for the neighbourhood (census area of about 700 homes) around it, not just this postcode; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, council tax levels 2026-27. Bands are charged as fixed shares of Band D; the actual bill depends on the parish and on discounts such as the single-person discount. Check a home's own band with the official council tax band checker.

Planning and heritage

  • Conservation area: no postcode centre in this postcode is in one.
  • Listed buildings within 100 m of this postcode: 1.
  • Article 4 direction (removing permitted development rights): Luton Town Centre and Surrounds (2023).
  • Tree preservation orders: none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
  • Green belt: no.

Listed buildings

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1.0 km

Source: planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), compiled from councils and, for listed buildings, Historic England's National Heritage List. Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, tree preservation areas and the green belt are checked at each postcode's centre. Listed buildings and protected trees are counted within 100 m of this postcode. Councils publish Article 4 directions, tree preservation orders and brownfield registers to different standards, and some not yet. Planning applications are not here: there is no national open record of them yet.

Flood risk

No address in this postcode is in an area at high, medium or low risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water. The rest are in areas at very low risk: less than a 0.1% (1 in 1,000) chance a year.

Rivers and the sea alone: no home is in an area at risk.

High: 3.3% (1 in 30) or more chance of flooding a year. Medium: 1% to 3.3%. Low: 0.1% to 1%. Very low: under 0.1%. The rivers and sea figures allow for flood defences. Counts cover whole postcodes, which can include other streets.

Flood zone for planning: no postcode centre is in flood zone 2 or 3.

Sources: Environment Agency Flood risk: postcode search tool data (loaded 29 October 2026), Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea: postcodes in areas at risk (loaded 29 October 2026) and Flood Map for Planning (loaded 28 October 2026). Flood zones are checked at each postcode's centre point. These are models of areas, which their publishers say are not suitable for showing whether an individual property is at risk, and they do not cover flooding from sewers or drains. Check an address on the official long-term flood risk service.

Height above sea level

The postcode's 5 addresses are between 105 m and 106 m above sea level (105 m on average).

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Terrain 50, July 2026: the height of the ground on a 50 m grid, read at each address, in metres above Ordnance Datum (mean sea level at Newlyn). It is the lie of the land, not floor or threshold levels, and is accurate to a few metres. Being low-lying is not in itself a flood risk; the flood section above says what the flood maps show.

Broadband

Superfast 100%, ultrafast 100%, gigabit 100% of premises; 0% cannot get 10 Mbit/s. Ofcom Connected Nations, data as at January 2026.

Getting around

Sources: Department for Transport, NaPTAN (every public transport stop), as at 31 October 2026; Office of Rail and Road, Estimates of station usage 2024–25 (which stations are on the National Rail network, and their journeys: entries and exits in the year to March); OurAirports (public domain, kept by volunteers); car parks and charging points from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and others: not an official register, so some will be missing, private or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre, not routes, and say nothing about how often anything runs. Stations opened since the end of ORR's year appear when ORR publishes the next one, each December; heritage railways are left out.

NearestDistance
Railway stationsLuton 3.7 million journeys in 2024–25480 m
Luton Airport Parkway 4.7 million journeys in 2024–251.2 km
Leagrave 1.5 million journeys in 2024–254.4 km
Bus stops26 stops within 400 m, 72 within 800 m; nearest St Marys Road Luton Town Centre40 m
Bus or coach stationLuton Station Interchange Luton Town Centre480 m
Car parks10 within 800 m; nearest Power Court - Main Car Park130 m
EV charging points16 within 1.6 km; nearest bp pulse Charging Station200 m
Airport with scheduled flightsLondon Luton Airport LTN2.9 km

Local services

Sources: NHS Organisation Data Service, as at 31 October 2026: GP practices, community pharmacies and dental practices with an NHS contract, open now, each placed at the centre of its postcode; hospitals are NHS trust and Welsh health board sites named as hospitals, and may not have an emergency department. Police stations and cash machines from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings: not an official register, so some will be missing or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre. Nothing here says whether a practice is taking new patients or a dentist new NHS patients.

NearestDistance
GP surgeries7 practices within 1.6 km; nearest The Town Centre Practice420 m
Pharmacies9 pharmacies within 1.6 km; nearest Superdrug Pharmacy270 m
NHS dentists9 practices within 1.6 km; nearest A George Street (Dental Surgery)430 m
HospitalLuton And Dunstable University Hospital4.7 km
Police stationLuton Police Station750 m
Cash machines7 machines within 800 m; nearest BT Kiosk o/s entrance University of Bedfordshire Cashzone190 m

Parks and green space

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Open Greenspace, April 2026: public parks and gardens, play spaces, playing fields and allotments, with their entrances. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre to a site's nearest entrance (or its edge where none is recorded), not walking routes; sizes are the area OS maps for each site. Some sites, such as school playing fields, may not be open to the public.

NearestDistance
Park or garden1 within 800 m; nearest Hat Gardens 1,520 m²350 m
Play area4 within 800 m; nearest Manor Road Park Play Area 300 m²410 m
Playing field1 within 800 m; nearest Manor Road Park 2.5 ha340 m
Allotments2 within 800 m; nearest Unnamed 5,510 m²590 m

Within 800 m: 1 park or garden, 0.2 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is Parish Church of St Mary, a listed building (Grade I), 10 m. 62 listed buildings are within 1.0 km, 1 of them Grade I.

Historic places
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
Parish Church of St MaryListed building, Grade I10 m
Wardown ParkRegistered park or garden, Grade II1.8 km north
The Improvement GardenRegistered park or garden, Grade II*1.8 km south-west
Natural landmarks within 5.0 km
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
Lower Kidney WoodWood1.6 km south
Wardown LakeLake or reservoir1.7 km north-west
Spittlesea WoodWood1.8 km east
Kidney WoodWood2.0 km south
Farley PondLake or reservoir2.2 km south-west
Winch HillHill4.4 km east

Sources: Historic England's registers through planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG), and Cadw through DataMapWales (Welsh Government): World Heritage Sites within 10.0 km, battlefields within 5.0 km, registered parks and gardens within 3.0 km, scheduled monuments within 2.0 km, and Grade I and II* listed buildings within 1.0 km. Ordnance Survey, OS Open Names, October 2026: named hills, valleys, lakes, woods, wetlands and coast (it has no rivers). Distances are in a straight line to the middle of each site, and being on a register does not mean there is public access.

Air quality

Source: Defra, modelled background air pollution, annual means for 2024, for the 1 km square that holds the postcode's centre. These are background levels, away from the kerb: beside a busy road nitrogen dioxide in particular can be several times higher. UK limits are the legal annual limits for England and Wales; the World Health Organization's 2021 guidelines are much stricter, and most towns and cities are above them.

Annual means in µg/m³ (micrograms per cubic metre of air)
PollutantHereUK limitWHO guideline
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)14.44010
Fine particles (PM2.5)7.7205
Particles (PM10)12.54015

All three are within the UK legal limits; nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 are above the WHO guideline, as in most towns and cities.

Road and rail noise

Source: Defra, strategic noise mapping Round 4 (England), modelled for 2021 and published in December 2023: Lden, the average sound level over a whole day with extra weight for the evening and night, on a 10 m grid, read at each address. These are models of traffic on the roads and railways, not measurements; they leave out aircraft, industry and neighbours, and a room at the back of a house is often much quieter than the front. The World Health Organization's guidelines are 53 dB for road traffic and 54 dB for railways.

Addresses by modelled noise level (Lden, dB)
LevelRoad trafficRailways
60 to 6403
55 to 5922
Under 5530

2 of the postcode's 5 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic, and 5 at 55 dB or more from railways, above the WHO guidelines.

People and work

Source: ONS Census 2021, taken on 21 March 2021, for the Output Area (a small census area of about 125 households) that this postcode is in: 532 residents in 128 households. The census was taken during a lockdown, so working from home is high and travel to work low compared with now. ONS swaps a few records between neighbouring areas and adds small amounts of noise to counts to protect privacy, so small differences mean little. Industry is not published for areas this small.

Who lives here

Around this postcodeEngland
Median age2340
Children under 154%17%
Aged 65 and over5%18%

Homes

Around this postcodeEngland
Owned (outright or with a mortgage)5%61%
Owned outright3%33%
Shared ownership2%1%
Social rented24%17%
Private rented69%21%

Work and commuting

Around this postcodeEngland
Adults (16 and over) in work32%57%
Unemployment (of those working or looking for work)31%6%
Retired (of adults)4%22%
Long-term sick or disabled (of adults)2%4%
Work mainly from home (of those in work)9%32%
Travel to work by car or van32%48%
By train, Underground, metro or tram5%4%
By any public transport, including bus36%8%
On foot or by bicycle23%10%
Work within 10 km of home (of those who travel to work)75%65%
Work 30 km or more away11%8%

Education and languages

Around this postcodeEngland
Degree or other higher qualification, Level 4+ (of adults)25%34%
No qualifications13%18%
Apprenticeship as highest qualification3%5%
Main language English (aged 3 and over)64%91%
Cannot speak English well or at all4%2%

Deprivation

The neighbourhood around this postcode is in decile 1 of 10 on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, where 1 is the most deprived tenth of England's 33,755 neighbourhoods and 10 the least.

Source: English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), by LSOA (about 1,500 people), through the ONS Postcode Directory. The index combines income, employment, health, education, crime, housing and living environment; it ranks areas against each other and does not describe any one household. Ranks in England and Wales are worked out separately and cannot be compared.

The full dossier for this postcode's main street is on St Mary's Road.