Newtownards stands out for drugs: 2.3 times the rate of a typical town its size

Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.

Against the typical town its size, Newtownards runs highest on drugs (4.3 per 1,000 against 1.9), anti-social behaviour (24.3 per 1,000 against 12.4) and criminal damage & arson (7.6 per 1,000 against 6.2). Shoplifting and public order sit below it.

“Violent” is police.uk’s violence and sexual offences (which includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury), robbery and possession of weapons. Anti-social behaviour isn’t a crime category; shoplifting and other theft happen mostly in shops and town centres rather than to residents, so neither counts in the grade.

September 2025 to August 2026, per 1,000 residents. The tick on each bar is the typical (median) town among UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Conway Square records 3.5× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Newtownards.

Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Newtownards’s settlement), September 2023 to August 2026.

“Towns its size” pools all UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people that police.uk covers each month (Greater Manchester has no data; England and Wales towns only).

Rolling six-month rate, per 1,000 residents a year (longer windows for smaller places, where a few crimes swing a month). In the 12 months to August 2026 against the 12 before: violent +16% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles +6% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft -22% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour -10% (towns its size -4%).

Safety letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.

Graded crime per 1,000 residents a year, September 2023 to August 2026, counting from the least: towns ranked near Newtownards, and others in Ards and North Down.

24% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of Northern Ireland’s neighbourhoods, and 22% in the highest-crime 20%. The crime and disorder domain scores recorded crime, anti-social behaviour and deliberate fires where people live, on 2014–15 figures (NISRA’s latest edition), so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.

Newtownards’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (Super Output Area, about 2,000 people) in the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017 (crime and disorder domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of Northern Ireland’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.

And about 9 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 8 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.

Casualties are counted where the collision happened, not where people lived: a main road through town adds through-traffic, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Seriously injured is as the Police Service of Northern Ireland recorded it: the Department for Transport’s adjustment, which evens out different ways of recording injuries, covers Great Britain’s forces only, and the towns its size are Great Britain’s. There’s no national rate here: more than three quarters of Northern Ireland’s road deaths (77%) happen outside every town’s settlement boundary. Source: PSNI police recorded injury road traffic collisions, 2021–2025.

Collisions police recorded inside Newtownards’s settlement, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.

Newtownards records more graded crime per resident than every neighbour in the table. Comber, 3.9 miles away, records 15.6 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Newtownards’s 28.7.

Per 1,000 residents a year, the same three years. Tap a town for its safety page.