Crime
What is recorded crime like around this property?
Police forces in England and Wales publish street-level crime every month, as open data. It is the only national, consistent record of what is reported where — and it is widely misread. Used carefully it tells a renter something real about a street.
How we measure it
We count offences recorded within 400 metres of the property — about a quarter of a mile, the streets around a home rather than the whole district — over the most recent 12 months. A full year evens out the seasons; a single month is too noisy to mean anything.
That figure is then compared against the same measurement taken across England, so you can see whether it is unremarkable or genuinely high, and the offences are broken down by category so you can see what is actually being recorded.
What this data cannot tell you
- Recorded crime is not all crime
- These are offences reported to and recorded by the police. Under-reporting varies by offence and by area, so a low count can mean a quiet street or a community that does not report.
- Locations are approximate by design
- Street-level data is snapped to an anonymous point near the offence, never the exact address. This protects victims, and it means individual pins should be read as "around here", not "at this door".
- Busy places record more crime
- A high street, a station or a shopping centre generates shoplifting and theft that has little to do with living on the road behind it. Town-centre flats almost always look worse than their surroundings feel.
- A count is not a rate
- A dense area with many homes will record more offences than a sparse one without being more dangerous per person. That is why the figure is worth comparing against a national benchmark rather than read alone.
Reading it as a renter
The categories matter more than the total. Vehicle crime and bicycle theft are worth knowing about if you have either to park. Anti-social behaviour concentrated on one street is a different proposition from shoplifting concentrated on a parade of shops. Burglary is the category most directly about the home itself.
Crime data is published by the police forces of England and Wales at data.police.uk under the Open Government Licence. Some forces publish later than others, so the most recent month or two may be incomplete.
Check the property
Crime nearby is part of the free check, alongside the energy rating, flood zone, conservation area and listed building status, and the sale history.