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Housing
• Some 68,000 homes, with
major growth
• Ranging from central urban
riverside apartments, close
to town terraces and green
suburban mix to rural local
stone and brick homes in
a variety of river valley,
woodland and other
countryside settings
• Recently growing at around
900 homes a year, provision
has been made for future
growth at double this rate
supporting a substantial
workforce increase
• With house prices around 10%
below the regional average
and over 4% below the
national average, Bedford
is well placed from an
affordability perspective
Workforce
• 85,000 strong workforce
• Over 37% with NVQ4 (degree
level) qualifications, higher
than regionally and nationally
• High participation in job-related
training
Education
• Major local higher education
facilities include the University
of Bedfordshire with 24,000
students and Cranfield University
with 4,650 post graduate
students, 15,000 continuing
professional development
delegates and world-class
research specialisms in
aerospace, automotive,
bio-science, energy,
environment, manufacturing,
security and defence
• Bedford College, with 16,000
students, is rated by OFSTED
as good, a centre of vocational
excellence in five disciplines
and a trainer of thousands of
managers and employees
each year
• GCSE and A level results are
above the national average with
a number of the local schools
amongst the best performing
schools in the country, with
specialist status in business and
enterprise, maths and computing,
humanities, arts and sport
Town Centre
• Bedford, being a major regional
town, is a substantial retail
centre with nearly 3m sqft of
retail floorspace
• The town centre is also
undergoing a massive
renaissance with large scale
‘quarter’ redevelopments,
including new bus station and
riverside developments
Journey times from Bedford
Place
Road
Birmingham
1 hr 30 mins
Cambridge
50 mins
Cranfield
20 mins
Felixstowe Port
2 hrs
Leicester
1 hr 20 mins
London
1hr 25 mins
London Luton Airport
35 mins
Milton Keynes
26 mins
Oxford
1 hr 20 mins
London Gateway Port, Thurrock
1 hr 30 mins