Population
203,201
Persons in households
201,549
Population density
46.9
Male residents
50.2
Female
49.8%
Situated only 30 miles north of London, Luton has easy access to most major cities in the UK due to its excellent road, air and rail links. Surrounded by the Chilterns, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Luton offers the best of both worlds; a modern, cosmopolitan town with excellent business opportunities and accommodation, with the added advantage of superb countryside on its doorstep, making it a great place to live, learn, work and have fun.
Luton has many natural open spaces, including seven landscaped parks which have achieved Green Flag Award status, and recreational areas including the state of the art Inspire Luton Sports Village leisure facility featuring a 50 metre competition grade swimming pool.
Luton is home to more than 200,000 people, many of whom are young and skilled. It also has a catchment of 23 million people within two hours’ travel time.
The University of Bedfordshire, Barnfield College and Luton Sixth Form College all offer high quality facilities for education and training.
If you need to get around then you could not be better placed, Luton has excellent communications however you choose to travel.
Luton has great transport links, it has its very own London Luton Airport which has been operating for 75 years and is England’s 5th largest airport with 9.6 million passengers in 2012. The airport offers flights to more than 100 destinations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. EasyJet, Monarch and Thomson all have bases at London Luton, and the airport is home to significant cargo and aircraft engineering operations. Wizz Air, Ryanair, EL
AL, Atlasjet, Blue Air and TAROM and a number of charter airlines also fly from the airport, which is the busiest for private aviation in the UK.
Just off the newly widened M1, minutes from the M25 and a short distance from the A1, Luton has easy access to many main road routes. Major improvements to local road networks include the building of a new £22 million road to provide an easy and fast link between the M1 and London Luton Airport.
The innovative Luton Dunstable Busway, opened in September 2013, makes it easy to travel quickly and easily across Luton and surrounding areas.
Three railway stations serve Luton with fast rail services across the UK. The international rail terminal at London St Pancras is just 22 minutes away.
A key part of the strategy is for the Council, employers, education and learning providers and other agencies to work together to relentlessly focus on skills and improving employment chances. Luton has excellent education provision, supporting the needs of learners and local employers. Within the secondary sector, school performance has shown marked increases over the last ten years and now compares very favourably with both national averages and Luton’s ‘statistical neighbours’.
After leaving school, young people have a broad range of options to further their ambitions. An outstanding sixth form college offers an unrivalled curriculum, further education colleges respond to local need with courses that supply the labour market with the skills needed to Compete, and the University of Bedfordshire engages and supports businesses in their research, development and training needs from its state of the art main campus in the town centre.
Benefitting from significant capital investment over the last ten years, much of Luton’s education stock has been transformed and is now equipped to train and develop learners for the employment needs of tomorrow Museums
Our town's museums are well worth a visit: the award winning Luton museum and art gallery holds a fantastic collection of hats and lace that attracts visitors from across the country and Stockwood Discovery Centre houses the largest museum set of horse drawn vehicles in the UK. Throughout the galleries there are listening posts where visitors can hear local people telling their stories. There are also hands on exhibits and touch screen computers with images of old Luton. The ground floor galleries include the Lace Gallery displaying some of the museum’s extensive collection of local lace and the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire gallery tells the story of the local regiment. The ground floor also houses the special exhibitions gallery.
The museum holds around four temporary exhibitions a year on different subjects. There are also events and activities for all ages and interests throughout the year. Exhibitions range from nationally significant partnership exhibitions with the British Museum to hands on displays for all the family.
Shopping
Visit the Mall shopping centre with its large choice of popular high street names, unique independent stores and indoor market. The shopping doesn’t stop there with interesting independent stores in the surrounding streets and a vibrant Eastern Mile Asian Polish shopping area a few minutes’ walk away.
Leisure
Our Galaxy Centre is one of the UK’s only town centre based leisure and entertainment complexes, offering a wide range of entertainment facilities including a multiplex cinema, pub, restaurants, Bowling Alley and games station all under one roof.
Inspire: Luton Sport Village
A new state of the art, multi-sport facility complete with a 50 metre international standard swimming pool. The facility has been designed for use by the whole community, as well as by our talented and elite athletes. Inspire hosts a range of activities to suit all ages and abilities. Inspire have developed activities and programmes for specific interest groups including Early Years, Children and Young People, Holiday Programmes, Women Only, Full of Life activities for the more mature person and much, much more.
AoCJobs, part of the Association of Colleges, connects teachers and support staff with schools and colleges for online job opportunities.