WD18 8RT Watford

Streets

• Caxton Way, Watford: 1 address

House prices and rents in Watford

A typical home in Watford cost £408,659 in August 2026, 0.4% less than a year before. That is 6% more than five years earlier and 12% more than ten years earlier.

Private renters in Watford paid £1,834 a month on average in September 2026, 2.1% more than a year before. That is 32% more than five years earlier.

Sources: UK House Price Index (HM Land Registry, with the ONS and the Welsh Government), to August 2026; ONS Price Index of Private Rents, to September 2026. Figures for the whole council area. The typical price is adjusted for the mix of homes that sold, so it is not the value of any one home. Rents are the average paid on all private tenancies, new and existing, so they move more slowly than rents being advertised.

Council tax

What each band costs in Watford in 2026-27: Band D £2,447 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

Homes by band in the neighbourhood around this postcode: most are in band C (67% of about 1,250 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: none.
• Article 4 direction (removing permitted development rights): none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
• Tree preservation orders: none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
• Green belt: no.

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1 km (0.6 miles)

• Land at Croxley View: up to 240 homes, not permissioned (190 m)
• Land east of Ascot Road: up to 27 homes, not permissioned (540 m (0.3 miles))
• Land to the west of and parallel to Ascot Road: up to 43 homes, not permissioned (580 m (0.4 miles))
• Ascot Road, Eagle Relocations, permissioned (590 m (0.4 miles))
• Cinnamond House, Cassiobridge: up to 78 homes, not permissioned (850 m (0.5 miles))
• 33 Baldwins Lane, Croxley Green: up to 59 homes, not permissioned (860 m (0.5 miles))

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.

Energy projects nearby

No wind turbine or waste plant within 5 km (3.1 miles), and no solar farm, battery site or other project of 1 MW or more within 2 km (1.2 miles), of the postcode, operating or planned.

Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q2 2026 extract, Open Government Licence: renewable electricity and storage projects over 150 kW, operating, being built, permitted or applied for. Shown: wind turbines and plants that burn or digest waste within 5 km (3.1 miles), other projects of 1 MW or more within 2 km (1.2 miles); refused, withdrawn and abandoned projects are left out. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each project's grid reference.

Flood risk

The Environment Agency's long-term flood risk figures have not been loaded for this postcode yet.

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

Recorded floods

No recorded flood covers the centre of this postcode.

Recorded floods are where floodwater was seen or surveyed after a flood. Many floods were never mapped, an outline over a postcode's centre does not mean every home in it flooded, and homes outside one may have. Ask the seller whether the home itself has flooded.

Sources: Environment Agency Recorded Flood Outlines; 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.

© Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved. Some features are based on digital spatial data from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, © NERC (CEH); the postcode data is produced in part from PAF® and Multiple Residence Data, © Royal Mail Group Limited.

Coastal erosion

No projected coastal erosion zone is within 1 km (0.6 miles) of the postcode.

Sources: Environment Agency, National Coastal Erosion Risk Mapping 2024 (England), and Natural Resources Wales, National Coastal Erosion Risk Management (Wales), Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to the edge of each zone; where a postcode centre is inside a zone, some homes on it may not be.

Storm overflows

No storm overflow outlet is within 1 km (0.6 miles) of the postcode.

Source: Environment Agency, Event Duration Monitoring storm overflow annual return for 2025, from the water companies' monitors on each overflow in England, Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each overflow's outlet. A year's figures are published the following spring; a monitor that worked for less of the year undercounts.

Coal mining

No postcode centre here is in a coalfield: the Mining Remediation Authority records no coal mining risk here.

Source: Mining Remediation Authority (formerly the Coal Authority), development high and low risk areas, Open Government Licence. Checked at each postcode's centre, so a home near the edge of an area may differ. It covers coal mining only, not other mining (such as tin, lead, iron or chalk), and is no substitute for a coal mining search. About the risk areas.

Radon

The postcode is in a 1 km square with radon potential up to 1 to 3%: up to that share of homes there is estimated to be at or above the Action Level of 200 becquerels per cubic metre. At least part of the square is a radon Affected Area, where 1% or more of homes are.

Radon is a natural radioactive gas from the ground that can build up indoors; long exposure raises the risk of lung cancer. A three-month test with two small detectors is the only way to know a home's level, and a high level can usually be brought down with a sump or better ventilation. UKHSA sells a radon report for a single address from its detailed map at ukradon.org.

Source: British Geological Survey and UK Health Security Agency, Indicative Atlas of Radon in Great Britain, Open Government Licence. Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI 2026. Each 1 km square is classed by the highest radon potential found anywhere in it, so a square's figure can overstate it for much of the square; the detailed map is not open data.

Gas and electricity use

The postcode does not have the 5 or more domestic meters needed for figures to be published.

Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, postcode level domestic gas and electricity statistics for 2024 (gas from mid-May to mid-May), Open Government Licence: domestic meters on each postcode, from the gas and electricity industry's meter readings. A postcode with fewer than 5 meters of a fuel has no figures for it.

Historic landfill

2 historic landfill sites are within 500 m (0.3 miles) of the postcode, the nearest 130 m away.

Closed tips can give off gas (methane and carbon dioxide) and leak into the ground for years. An environmental search, which conveyancers usually order, looks at landfill and contaminated land around the home; the council keeps a register of land it has found to be contaminated.

Sources: Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, historic landfill sites (places where waste was put into or onto the land and no environmental permit is now in force), Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to the edge of each site as mapped; the outlines and dates come from old records and can be approximate. Landfill still operating is not included.

Height above sea level

The postcode's address is about 59 m above sea level.

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.

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. Ratings and care homes: Care Quality Commission, latest ratings as at 2 November 2026 (England only; the CQC does not rate dental practices, and Wales's inspectorates give no ratings). 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.

Nurseries and childcare

The ten nearest nurseries, pre-schools and clubs are all within 1.2 km (0.7 miles); the nearest is 420 m (0.3 miles) from the postcode's centre.

Ofsted also registers 841 childminders and 251 home childcarers (nannies) in Hertfordshire. It does not publish their addresses, so they cannot be shown here; the council's family information service lists those taking children.

Source: Ofsted, childcare providers and inspections management information, as at June 2026, Open Government Licence: providers on the Early Years and Childcare Registers on non-domestic premises, placed at their postcode. Since November 2025 Ofsted gives a standard for each of six areas (Exceptional, Strong, Expected, Needs attention, Urgent improvement) rather than one overall grade; older grades stand until a provider is inspected again. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre.

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.

Within 800 m (0.5 miles): 2 parks and gardens, 4.1 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is The Manor of the More, a scheduled monument, 1.5 km (0.9 miles) south-west.

Sources: Historic England's registers through planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG), and Cadw through DataMapWales (Welsh Government): World Heritage Sites within 10 km (6.2 miles), battlefields within 5 km (3.1 miles), registered parks and gardens within 3 km (1.9 miles), scheduled monuments within 2 km (1.2 miles), and Grade I and II* listed buildings within 1 km (0.6 miles). 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.

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, and its airport maps of the same round for the fifteen largest English airports, published in April 2026: 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, not measurements; they leave out smaller airports and airfields, 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, 54 dB for railways and 45 dB for aircraft (below the lowest level shown here).

None of the postcode's 1 addresses is modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic or railways.

Road safety

Source: Department for Transport, road safety data (STATS19), collisions in 2021 to 2025, as published by November 2026. Collisions in which someone was hurt and which were reported to the police, within 250 m of the postcode's centre. Severity is the worst injury as the police recorded it.

No collisions in which someone was hurt were reported around the postcode in 2021 to 2025.

Only collisions in which someone was hurt and which the police were told about are here: damage-only collisions and near misses are not, and some injuries are never reported. Positions are recorded by the police, usually to within a few metres. Each year's figures are published the following September.

Traffic on nearby roads

No traffic count point is within 500 m (0.3 miles) of the postcode. The Department for Transport counts every motorway and A road and only a sample of minor roads, so a quiet residential street usually has none.

Source: Department for Transport, road traffic statistics, annual average daily flows to 2025, Open Government Licence. Distances are from the nearest postcode centre to each count point.

Climate, daylight and earthquakes

Monthly temperatures and rainfall, sunrise and sunset through the year, and earthquakes recorded nearby since 1970 are much the same across the area, so they are worked out once for Watford: see them on the Watford page.

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: 395 residents in 157 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

Homes

Work and commuting

Education and languages

Deprivation

The neighbourhood around this postcode is in decile 2 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.