Central Bedfordshire · England
Henlow population
12,320people · latest estimate
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Henlow has a population of 12,320, making it the 6th largest place in Central Bedfordshire.
Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Central Bedfordshire population trends, 2001–2024.
Henlow in context
Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.
The centre of Henlow sits in postcode district SG16.
Food and drink on the high street
| Registered premises | Count |
|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafés (8.2 per 10,000 residents) | 2 |
| Takeaways and sandwich shops (4.1 per 10,000 residents) | 1 |
| Pubs, bars and nightclubs (16.4 per 10,000 residents) | 4 |
Counts are registered food premises in the Henlow built-up area (2,445 residents at the 2021 census), from the FSA food hygiene register, extracted 17 August 2026. The boundary is drawn from where the buildings are, so these figures cover the town itself rather than the wider council area, and no total is shown because the register also lists premises nobody would call a venue: school kitchens, care homes, warehouses. Compare towns →
Shops and services
| Premises | Count |
|---|---|
| Shops (all retail) (16.4 per 10,000 residents) | 4 |
| Hairdressing salons (4.1 per 10,000 residents) | 1 |
| Gyms (4.1 per 10,000 residents) | 1 |
Shops, cafés, salons, banks, post offices and arcades are rateable premises by use on the VOA 2023 rating list — the shops figure is all general retail, charity shops included. Gambling premises come from the Gambling Commission's licensing register, which lists 6,251 betting shops nationally against the rating list's 3,838: many betting shops are rated as ordinary shops, so the licensing register is the truer count and the one used here. Categories the rating list counts badly are deliberately absent rather than wrong: petrol stations disappear into supermarket ratings, vets and museums run far under their professional registers, and pools and nurseries mostly rate inside other premises. Same built-up-area boundary as the download table on this page.
Crime, per 1,000 residents
| Category (police-recorded, 12 months) | Rate |
|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 9.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | 11.9 |
| Shoplifting | 0.4 |
| Criminal damage and arson | 3.3 |
| Vehicle crime | 3.7 |
| Burglary | 0.4 |
| Other theft | 1.6 |
| All recorded offences | 35.6 |
The all-offences line is a count of records, not a safety score: it weighs every category equally, which is exactly why we publish the categories. We deliberately do not combine them into a single index.
Figures are police-recorded crime (August 2025 to July 2026) located to this built-up area, per 1,000 residents at the 2021 census. Three cautions, each of which changes how a rate should be read: recorded crime is not crime experienced, because reporting rates differ by category and by place; the denominator counts residents, so town centres and visitor towns run high per resident precisely because many people there are not residents; and a high figure can reflect more reporting as easily as more crime. Percentiles compare towns of 10,000+ residents. Greater Manchester and Gloucestershire constabularies do not publish, so their towns show a note instead of a partial figure. Compare towns →
House prices
| Property type | Median sale price |
|---|---|
| All types (31 sales) | £355,000 |
Medians of actual registered sales in the Henlow built-up area, July 2025 to June 2026, from HM Land Registry Price Paid data (standard open-market sales only; repossessions, part-value transfers and non-residential records excluded). A median is the middle sale, so it resists the mansion problem that skews averages. Recent sales take weeks to register, which is why the window ends before the current month. Types with fewer than 20 sales are not shown. Compare towns →
Council tax
The area Band D council tax for Central Bedfordshire, the billing authority covering Henlow, is £2,516 for 2026–27.
From MHCLG's council tax statistics (Table 9): the area average including police, fire and parish precepts, so it is the council's figure rather than the town's, and your own band depends on your property's 1991 valuation.
Schools
| Open establishments | Schools | Places | Pupils | Filled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary schools | 2 | 654 | 665 | 101.7% |
| Secondary schools | 1 | 900 | 599 | 66.6% |
The 2021 census counted 143 children aged 5 to 9 in the town: one state primary school for every 72 of them.
Open schools registered in the Henlow built-up area, from the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register, extracted 24 August 2026. Each school counts once: an independent special school appears under special schools, and the phase rows are state schools. Places are reported capacity and pupils each school's latest census return, summed only over schools reporting both, and shown only where at least 9 in 10 of a phase's schools do; state primaries across measured towns run at 89.2% of capacity, secondaries 91.3%. The children-per-school figure pairs a 2021 census count with today's register, so growth or decline since the census is not in it. No inspection grades are shown because Ofsted stopped issuing single-word overall judgements in 2024 and the register no longer carries them; current inspection reports are on Ofsted's own site. England only: the register lists Welsh schools without phase detail.
Care quality, as the regulator rates it
Care homes: 1 Good.
These are the Care Quality Commission's own latest overall judgments (September 2026 publication), counted on this built-up area, never combined into any score of ours. A rating's age varies with when CQC last inspected, and unrated locations (new registrations, or types CQC does not rate) are not shown. The dental figure counts every registered location on CQC's directory, NHS and private alike; it says nothing about whether one is taking NHS patients. England only. Compare towns →
Broadband
| Availability | % of homes |
|---|---|
| Gigabit-capable (1,000 Mbit/s+) | 97.2% |
| Superfast (30 Mbit/s+) | 99.4% |
| Unable to get 10 Mbit/s download | 4 homes (0.4%) |
Share of the 1,078 residential premises in this built-up area that the fixed network can serve at each speed, from Ofcom's Connected Nations coverage data (network state July 2025). Availability is what the line to a home can deliver if ordered, not what households actually subscribe to, and a full-fibre street where everyone bought the cheapest package shows 100% here. Percentile compares towns of 10,000+ residents. Compare towns →
Common questions
What is the population of Henlow?
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Towns like Henlow
The closest statistical matches among English and Welsh towns of 10,000+ residents, with geography playing no part. Henlow's own figures sit in the first row for comparison.
| Town | County | Median price | Offences /1,000 | Median age | Owner-occupied |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henlow | Central Bedfordshire | £355,000 | 35.6 | 46.0 | 74.1% |
| Urmston | Trafford | £350,000 | — | 44.5 | 78.3% |
| Lymm | Warrington | £375,000 | 49.0 | 46.1 | 79.2% |
| Kesgrave | Suffolk | £350,000 | 25.0 | 44.1 | 77.8% |
| Thame | Oxfordshire | £437,000 | 42.6 | 44.0 | 71.8% |
| Hazel Grove | Borough of Stockport | £325,000 | — | 45.3 | 82.7% |
Matched on up to six measures — house prices, recorded crime, median age, owner-occupation, gigabit availability and professional occupations — each rank-normalised across the 773 towns that carry at least four of them. The likeness is mechanical, and the columns are here so you can judge it yourself.