The Square Dunstable, Central Bedfordshire

50 addresses across 3 postcodes (LU6), about 180 m long, classed as a local access road. USRN 35100465.

  • Energy: 5 homes have an energy certificate (C: 3, E: 2).
  • Flood: 13 addresses on its postcodes are in areas at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water.
  • Council tax: Most homes around it are in council tax band D; Band D in Central Bedfordshire costs £2,516 a year in 2026-27.
  • Broadband: Gigabit broadband is available to 78% to 100% of premises.
  • Transport: The nearest railway station is Leagrave, about 4.8 km (3 miles) away in a straight line.
  • Green space: The nearest park or garden, Priory Gardens, is about 40 m away.
  • Air: Background air pollution in 2024 was 9.3 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.4 of PM2.5, within UK legal limits.
  • Height: Its addresses are 145 to 148 m above sea level.
  • Noise: 38 of its 50 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic.
  • Doctors: The nearest GP surgery is Eastgate Surgery, about 170 m away, with 5 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile).
  • People: About 650 people lived in the census areas around it in 2021; 64% of households owned their home and 33% of adults held a degree or other higher qualification.
  • Crime: 207 crimes were recorded within 250 m between September 2025 and August 2026, most often violence and sexual offences.

Sales on this street

Source: HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, sales registered up to 28 August 2026, loaded 28 October 2026. Sales reach the register two weeks to two months after completion, so the last two months are incomplete. Matched by postcode and street name.

No sales recorded on this street since January 1995 under this street name.

Energy performance certificates

Source: Energy Performance of Buildings Register (MHCLG), register as at 1 November 2026 (load in progress). Latest certificate per address; certificates last ten years, so the oldest here dates from November 2016 and some homes have none. Address data © Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, shown for understanding the energy efficiency of buildings only.

5 homes with a current certificate; median floor area 44 m². Most common: Flat (4); Maisonette, mid-terrace (1). Built: 1900-1929 (4); before 1900 (1). Tenure at assessment: rented (private) (5).

Council tax

What each band costs in Central Bedfordshire in 2026-27: Band D £2,516 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

ABCDEFGH
£1,677£1,957£2,237£2,516£3,075£3,634£4,194£5,032

Homes by band in the neighbourhoods around this street: most are in band D (35% of about 1,380 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 2 neighbourhoods (census areas of about 700 homes each) around it, not just this street; 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: yes, Dunstable Conservation Area. Extensions, demolition, some windows and doors, and work on trees need consent.
  • Listed buildings on or by this street: 9.
  • 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.

Listed buildings

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1 km (0.6 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 on or by this street. 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.

Roadworks

Finished in the last three months

  • 11 August 2026: BT, Utility asset works, some carriageway incursion, on the footway (minor works)
  • 5 August 2026: BT, Utility asset works, some carriageway incursion, on the footway (minor works)

Source: Department for Transport, Street Manager open data, permits and works up to 30 September 2026. It is published once a month, so works arranged or started since then are not shown, and dates are the ones planned unless the works have started or finished. Emergency works are often permitted after they begin.

Flood risk

Rivers, the sea or surface water: in this street's postcodes, 11 addresses are in areas at high risk, 2 at medium risk and 11 at low risk. Each address counts once, at the higher of its rivers-and-sea and surface-water risk.

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 on this street is in flood zone 2 or 3.

PostcodePlanning zoneAddresses at high / medium / low riskGroundwater
LU6 3SNnot in 2 or 3 8 / 2 / 0 unlikely
LU6 3HDnot in 2 or 3 3 / 0 / 10 unlikely
LU6 3HAnot in 2 or 3 0 / 0 / 1 unlikely

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.

© 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.

Height above sea level

The street's 50 addresses are between 145 m and 148 m above sea level (147 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

Source: Ofcom Connected Nations, data as at January 2026. Percentages are of premises in each postcode that can get the service, not take-up or speed achieved.

Availability by postcode (% of premises)
PostcodeSuperfast (30 Mbit/s+)Ultrafast (300 Mbit/s+)GigabitBelow 10 Mbit/s
LU6 3HA100%100%100%0%
LU6 3HD96%96%78%0%
LU6 3SN95%85%85%0%

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 middle of the street, 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 stationsLeagrave 1.5 million journeys in 2024–254.8 km (3 miles)
Luton 3.7 million journeys in 2024–257.3 km (4.5 miles)
Luton Airport Parkway 4.7 million journeys in 2024–258.6 km (5.3 miles)
Bus stops11 stops within 400 m (0.2 miles), 39 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest The Square Dunstable20 m
Bus or coach stationLuton Station Interchange Luton Town Centre7.1 km (4.4 miles)
Car parks1 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Ashton Square Car Park210 m
EV charging points8 within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest bp pulse Charging Station200 m
Airport with scheduled flightsLondon Luton Airport LTN10.5 km (6.5 miles)

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 middle of the street. Nothing here says whether a practice is taking new patients or a dentist new NHS patients.

NearestDistance
GP surgeries5 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Eastgate Surgery170 m
Pharmacies8 pharmacies within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Herington (Chemists) LTD80 m
NHS dentists5 practices within 1.6 km (1 mile); nearest Dental Surgery180 m
HospitalLuton And Dunstable University Hospital3.3 km (2 miles)
Police stationDunstable Police Station290 m
Cash machines2 machines within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Priory Service Station270 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 middle of the street 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 garden2 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Priory Gardens 6,650 m²40 m
Largest park within 800 m (0.5 miles)Grove House Gardens 2.7 ha510 m (0.3 miles)
Play area4 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 1,730 m²300 m
Playing field1 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Bennett Memorial Recreation Ground 3.3 ha300 m
Allotments1 within 800 m (0.5 miles); nearest Unnamed 2.8 ha640 m (0.4 miles)

Within 800 m (0.5 miles): 2 parks and gardens, 3.3 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is Priory House, a listed building (Grade II*), 60 m north. 54 listed buildings are within 1 km (0.6 miles), 2 of them Grade I and 4 of them Grade II*.

Historic places
NameWhat it isFrom the middle of the street
Priory HouseListed building, Grade II*60 m north
Chew's HouseListed building, Grade II*140 m south-east
Dunstable PrioryScheduled monument160 m north-east
Priory Gateway and attached wallsListed building, Grade I170 m north-east
Priory Church of St PeterListed building, Grade I200 m north-east
Five Knolls round barrow cemetery: three bell barrows, two bowl barrows and two pond barrows on Dunstable DownScheduled monument1.5 km (1 mile) south-west
A medieval warren on Dunstable DownsScheduled monument1.7 km (1 mile) south-west
Natural landmarks within 5 km (3.1 miles)
NameWhat it isFrom the middle of the street
Stipers HillHill1.1 km (0.7 miles) south-east
Grove SpringWood1.8 km (1.1 miles) east
The GreenWood2.2 km (1.3 miles) north
Dame Ellen's WoodWood2.3 km (1.4 miles) south-east
Skimpot WoodWood2.4 km (1.5 miles) east
Little John's WoodWood2.5 km (1.5 miles) south-east

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 middle of the street. 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)9.34010
Fine particles (PM2.5)7.4205
Particles (PM10)11.94015

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

Road, rail and aircraft 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).

Addresses by modelled noise level (Lden, dB)
LevelRoad trafficRailwaysAircraft
70 to 742400
65 to 69900
60 to 64200
55 to 59300
Under 55125050

38 of the street's 50 addresses are modelled at 55 dB or more from road traffic, above the WHO guidelines.

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 Central Bedfordshire: see them on the Central Bedfordshire page.

Nearest schools

Source: Get Information About Schools (Department for Education), 1 November 2026; Ofsted monthly management information as at September 2026. Distances are straight lines from the middle of the street to the school; catchments and admissions are not shown. Since November 2025 Ofsted gives report-card grades by area, not one overall grade; older grades stand until a school is re-inspected.

SchoolPhaseAgesDistanceInspection
Priory AcademyAll-through9–16280 m No published inspection
Dunstable Icknield Lower SchoolPrimary3–9430 m (0.3 miles) Requires improvement (Nov 2023, overall grade under the previous framework)
Watling Lower SchoolPrimary2–9520 m (0.3 miles) No published inspection
Ashton St Peter's VA C of E School Church of EnglandPrimary5–11760 m (0.5 miles) Report card (Apr 2026): Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard; Achievement: Expected standard; Attendance and behaviour: Expected standard; Personal development and wellbeing: Strong standard; Inclusion: Expected standard; Leadership and governance: Expected standard; Early years: Expected standard; Safeguarding standards: Met
Queensbury AcademySecondary11–19940 m (0.6 miles) No overall grade (Oct 2024, graded inspection without an overall judgement): Quality of education: Requires improvement; Behaviour and attitudes: Requires improvement; Personal development: Good; Leadership and management: Requires improvement
Ardley Hill AcademyPrimary2–11950 m (0.6 miles) Good (Jul 2024, overall grade under the previous framework)
Lark Rise AcademyPrimary3–111.2 km (0.7 miles) No overall grade (Mar 2025, graded inspection without an overall judgement): Quality of education: Outstanding; Behaviour and attitudes: Outstanding; Personal development: Outstanding; Leadership and management: Outstanding
St. Augustine's Academy Church of EnglandPrimary4–111.2 km (0.8 miles) No published inspection
Beecroft AcademyPrimary4–111.4 km (0.9 miles) Good (Mar 2024, overall grade under the previous framework)
Westfield Nursery SchoolNursery2–51.4 km (0.9 miles) Good (Oct 2023, overall grade under the previous framework)
Hadrian AcademyPrimary4–111.4 km (0.9 miles) No published inspection
Willow Nursery SchoolNursery2–51.5 km (0.9 miles) Good (May 2024, overall grade under the previous framework)

Food hygiene ratings nearby

Source: Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, extract of 1 November 2026. Each rating is shown with the date it was given; a business may have been re-inspected since the extract. Within 500 m (0.3 miles) of the middle of the street.

BusinessTypeDistanceRatingRated
Atlas Food Centre LU6 3HDRetailers - supermarkets/hypermarkets20 mAwaiting inspection
Vantage Indian Cuisine LU6 3RZRestaurant/Cafe/Canteen50 m5 Very good29 Jan 2025
SFC Peri Peri Chicken LU6 3RZTakeaway/sandwich shop50 m3 Generally satisfactory17 Sep 2026
Priory House Tea Rooms LU6 3RZRestaurant/Cafe/Canteen50 m4 Good23 Jul 2026
KFC LU6 3RZTakeaway/sandwich shop50 m5 Very good18 Nov 2025
Saracens Head LU6 3RZPub/bar/nightclub50 m5 Very good19 Feb 2026
Abbas Curry Lounge / Periperi Palace LU6 3SFTakeaway/sandwich shop70 mAwaiting inspection
China Express LU6 3SFTakeaway/sandwich shop120 m5 Very good11 Jun 2026
Peri Peri Original LU6 3SFTakeaway/sandwich shop120 m5 Very good3 Jun 2026
Danyells LU6 3HRRetailers - other130 m5 Very good28 Jul 2026
Lisa Roberts Catering LU6 3SNOther catering premises130 m5 Very good23 Feb 2026
BOYES LU6 3SNRetailers - other130 mExempt
The Coffee Pod LU6 3HARestaurant/Cafe/Canteen140 mAwaiting inspection
The Cake House LU6 3SNRetailers - other150 m5 Very good28 Sep 2017
UK Sala Ltd LU6 3SNRetailers - other150 m1 Major improvement necessary28 Aug 2026

Crime within 250 m

Source: data.police.uk street-level crime, September 2025 to August 2026. Police forces move every crime to the nearest of about 760,000 anonymised map points before publishing, so these are crimes near this street, not on it, and a busy point can collect crimes from a wider area. Counts are of records, not convictions.

207 recorded crimes by category
CategoryCrimes
Violence and sexual offences66
Anti-social behaviour43
Burglary23
Public order14
Other theft13
Drugs9
Criminal damage and arson9
Shoplifting7
Vehicle crime7
Robbery7
Other crime5
Possession of weapons3
Bicycle theft1

Most of these are attached to: On or near Shopping Area (61); On or near The Square (56); On or near Church Walk (23); On or near Theatre/Concert Hall (11); On or near The Paddocks (10).

People and work

Source: ONS Census 2021, taken on 21 March 2021, for the 2 Output Areas (small census areas of about 125 households each) that this street's postcodes are in: 645 residents in 315 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 streetEngland
Median age4840
Children under 1513%17%
Aged 65 and over24%18%

Homes

Around this streetEngland
Owned (outright or with a mortgage)64%61%
Owned outright36%33%
Shared ownership0%1%
Social rented14%17%
Private rented22%21%

Work and commuting

Around this streetEngland
Adults (16 and over) in work61%57%
Unemployment (of those working or looking for work)3%6%
Retired (of adults)26%22%
Long-term sick or disabled (of adults)3%4%
Work mainly from home (of those in work)30%32%
Travel to work by car or van49%48%
By train, Underground, metro or tramunder 1%4%
By any public transport, including bus2%8%
On foot or by bicycle18%10%
Work within 10 km (6 miles) of home (of those who travel to work)63%65%
Work 30 km (19 miles) or more away9%8%

Education and languages

Around this streetEngland
Degree or other higher qualification, Level 4+ (of adults)33%34%
No qualifications17%18%
Apprenticeship as highest qualification7%5%
Main language English (aged 3 and over)92%91%
Cannot speak English well or at all2%2%

Deprivation

The 2 neighbourhoods around this street are in deciles 5 to 9 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.

What has changed

  • Food hygiene ratings Jaccs Coffee Shop Ltd (restaurant/cafe/canteen, LU6 3AH) now 3 Generally satisfactory, was 5 Very good (rated 24 September 2026) found 30 October 2026

Everything that has changed on and near this street

Postcodes on this street

Source: ONS Postcode Directory August 2026, ONS UPRN Directory September 2026, OS Open Linked Identifiers September 2026. A postcode can cover more than one street; the share shows how many of its addresses are on this one.

  • LU6 3SN: 45 addresses of 46 in the postcode
  • LU6 3HD: 4 addresses of 49 in the postcode
  • LU6 3HA: 1 address of 42 in the postcode

Nearby streets

Wood Street · High Street South · Church Walk · The Paddocks · Church Close · Friary Field · St Mary's Gate · Friars Walk · Wellington Terrace · Broad Walk · Staines Square · Kingsbury Court

All the streets in LU6 and across Central Bedfordshire.

What this page cannot tell you

  • Whether a particular house is at risk of flooding, subsiding or anything else: the flood map is a model of areas and there is no property-level data here.
  • What a home is worth now: sales are historic prices for the homes that happened to sell.
  • How safe the street is: crime points are moved to anonymised locations and many crimes are never reported.
  • Whether you would get a place at a school: distances are straight lines, not catchments.
  • Who lives on the street now: census figures describe the small areas around it in March 2021, during a lockdown.
  • How long a journey takes or how often anything runs: transport distances are straight lines to the nearest stops.
  • Whether a GP practice is taking new patients, or a dentist new NHS patients.
  • How loud a home is inside, or noise from industry, neighbours or smaller airfields: noise figures are models of road, rail and air traffic outside.

How each figure on this page is matched to the street and worked out: methodology.