NewbuildingsDerry City and Strabane
The average domestic rates bill is £1,121 a year. Home to 2,837 people, this town lies in Derry City and Strabane, Northern Ireland.
Is Newbuildings a good place to live?
Cheap to live in, with trade-offs. Prices are modest for what you get (A+): homes sell for a median £179,400, about 3.7 times local household income. Taken together, its subjects give Newbuildings an A− overall, better than 84% of UK towns. The ranking puts it #1 of 5 in Derry City and Strabane and #19 of 63 in Northern Ireland. It is a safe place by the numbers (A+): 8.7 violent and sexual offences and 4.5 home and vehicle crimes per 1,000 residents a year. What holds it back is walkability — 8% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry (LPS), 2022 to 2024 at early-2025 prices · crime, police.uk, averaged Sep 2023 to Aug 2026 · commuting, Census 2021.
This town's Cost Grade uses house prices and the domestic rates bill: Northern Ireland has no council tax, and no rents are published for its council areas. This town's Health Grade uses NISRA's life expectancy for its district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and two Census 2021 measures, bad health and disability, adjusted for age. Healthy life expectancy and the early-death and hospital measures English towns use aren't published for small areas in Northern Ireland. This town's School Grade uses GCSE results at the post-primary schools its children travel to, grammar and non-grammar, compared with schools across Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland publishes no primary school results. Northern Ireland has no Jobs Grade (no small-area income, claimant or job-access data is published) and no Hazards Grade (its flood maps aren't open data).
How Newbuildings grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Northern Ireland), ordered by how far Newbuildings is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
What makes Newbuildings stand out
The 3 things Newbuildings does most differently from other towns.
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Newbuildings.
More households own their home in Newbuildings than in Derry City and Strabane’s towns or across Northern Ireland’s towns: 69%
16% rent privately, below both Derry City and Strabane’s towns (19%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (19%). Council and housing-body homes hold 13% of households. Newbuildings is the second most expensive of the 5 towns in Derry City and Strabane, at £179,400.
Median sale price · 2022 to 2024, at early-2025 prices
NISRA / Land & Property Services ward sale prices and domestic rates · NISRA Census 2021 tenure · OGL · The figure is NISRA’s median sale price for the wards around Newbuildings, 2022 to 2024, brought to early-2025 prices and weighted by sales.
Results at Newbuildings’s schools trail 57% of Northern Ireland towns
Some 194 pupils attend Newbuildings’s two primaries. One of its 2 schools is below, with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newbuildings Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 163 | – |
Per resident, Newbuildings sees less crime than 96% of UK towns
Violence and sexual offences accounted for 54% of recorded crime. Newbuildings logged 39 reported offences in a year (to August 2026), plus 23 complaints of anti-social conduct. For its size, Newbuildings records less crime per resident than 98% of the 1,308 UK towns of 2,500 to 10,000 people. There were 7.4 anti-social behaviour reports per 1,000 residents (not graded), lower than both Derry City and Strabane’s towns (17.7) and Northern Ireland’s towns (20.7).
Reports by type · Sep 2025 to Aug 2026
Not gradedAnti-social behaviour, shoplifting and other theft are shown but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident.
data.police.uk street-level crime · points inside the NISRA settlement boundary · OGL · The police category of violence and sexual offences includes harassment and stalking.
The car carries 90% of commuters in Newbuildings, more than in Derry City and Strabane’s towns and across Northern Ireland’s towns
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 11% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
Working mainly from home: 11% of workers, lower than both Derry City and Strabane’s towns (15%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (18%). Of the commuters living in Newbuildings, 7% work in the town itself. Each working resident is matched by 0.3 jobs locally.
How commuters got to work · March 2021
NISRA Census 2021, method of travel to work · OGL
Disability is less common in Newbuildings, 25% of residents, than in Derry City and Strabane’s towns and Northern Ireland’s towns
8.2% of residents report bad or very bad health. At the census, 78% of people in Newbuildings called their health good or very good, about level with Northern Ireland’s towns (77%) and above Derry City and Strabane’s towns (74%).
| Census 2021 | Newbuildings | Derry City and Strabane | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 74% | 77% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.2% | 11% | 8.7% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 25% | 29% | 26% |
NISRA Census 2021, general health and disability · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area, 2022–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy among them, do allow for age.
No listed buildings in Newbuildings
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
HED’s Historic Buildings Record has no building inside Newbuildings’s settlement.
Listed buildings by grade · HED
HED list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
Newbuildings has fewer young adults than Derry City and Strabane’s towns or Northern Ireland’s towns: 9.8% are 15 to 24
Line up the people of Newbuildings by age and the one in the middle is 37.1. Children under 15 make up 22%, higher than both Derry City and Strabane’s towns (20%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (19%). Those 65 and older account for 15% of residents.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Northern Ireland, 51% of residents are women.
| Newbuildings | Derry City and Strabane | Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 22% | 20% | 19% |
| 15–24 | 9.8% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 30% | 26% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 24% | 26% | 26% |
| 65+ | 15% | 16% | 17% |
| No qualifications | 28% | 29% | 25% |
| A levels or similar | 17% | 16% | 16% |
| Degree level | 23% | 29% | 32% |
NISRA Census 2021 · Derry City and Strabane and Northern Ireland: all residents of their settlements · Women and men: whole data zones, which approximate the town’s boundary · OGL
Everything we know about Newbuildings
St. Eugene's Cathedral and 8 more in and around Newbuildings
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Newbuildings. Best known first.
CathedralSt. Eugene's Cathedral4 km outside town, to the north
CathedralSt Columb's Cathedral3.6 km outside town, to the northeast
MuseumTower Museum4 km outside town, to the northeast
MuseumFoyle Valley Railway Museum3.3 km outside town, to the northeastMuseumMuseumMuseum of Free Derry3.8 km outside town, to the northArt galleryArt galleryVoid Derry4.1 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (4)
- St. Eugene's Cathedral: Romeparis, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- St Columb's Cathedral: Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Tower Museum: Kenneth Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Foyle Valley Railway Museum: NearEMPTiness, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
About Newbuildings
Town in Derry City and Strabane, Northern Ireland
Newbuildings is a settlement of 2,837 people, in the Derry City and Strabane council area. TownRatings uses NISRA’s settlements (the 2015 Settlement Development Limits) as Northern Ireland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council district, so its figures cover the town itself.
Built from NISRA geography and Census 2021
- Population
- 2,837 (Census 2021)
- Council
- Derry City and Strabane
- Nation
- Northern Ireland
- Area
- 0.4 sq mi (1 km²)
- NISRA code
- N11000250
Newbuildings’s neighbours
The nearest settlements, from NISRA’s 2015 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newbuildings | 2,837 | — | A− | A+ | A+ | C− |
| Derry City | 85,279 | 3.6 | C+ | A+ | D | D− |
| Eglinton | 3,571 | 8.3 | A− | A+ | A− | C |
| Strabane | 13,507 | 10 | C+ | A+ | C | D |
People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
Questions about Newbuildings
Is Newbuildings expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale in 2022 to 2024, at early-2025 prices, was £179,400, against £277,000 in the typical UK town. On cost of living it is the 40th most affordable of 63 Northern Ireland towns.
How much are the rates in Newbuildings?
Northern Ireland has no council tax: homes pay domestic rates, set on the home’s capital value, and the rates also pay for water. The average bill in Derry City and Strabane is about £1,121 a year for 2026–27, against England’s average council tax per home of £1,868. Your own bill depends on your home’s value; check it with Land & Property Services on nidirect.
Sources: NISRA Census 2021, data zones best-fitted to the NISRA Settlement Development Limits 2015 (settlement totals from NISRA where it publishes them) · NISRA / Land & Property Services verified residential sales by ward, 2005 to 2024, new and existing dwellings (medians; the 2022 to 2024 headline brought to early-2025 prices with the LPS house price index, which runs to 2026) · Land & Property Services domestic rates paid by council, 2025-26, and Department of Finance rate poundages 2026-27 · data.police.uk street-level crime (Police Service of Northern Ireland), 36 months to August 2026, points inside the settlement boundary · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and NISRA Census 2021 general health and disability, adjusted for age · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils · Department of Education examination performance at post-primary schools 2024/25 and school-level enrolment data 2025/26 · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.