Photo: Unknown author · Public domainSt Ives records bicycle theft at 3.9 times the rate of a typical town its size
Recorded violent and sexual offences ran at 26.2 per 1,000 residents a year, and burglary, vehicle crime and damage at 9.3. Violence recorded locally dropped 5% in a year. Taking everything together, St Ives scores C+ (#33 of 50 in Cambridgeshire): close to the middle of UK towns, measured on crimes police recorded inside its built-up area between September 2023 and August 2026. For its size, it sits below 73% of the 645 UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people on crime per resident.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in St Ives
Violent crime fell over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 5% less violent crime per resident in St Ives than in the year before; across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people violent crime held steady. Burglary, vehicle crime and criminal damage held steady (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
Less crime than many places its size
Of 317 UK towns of 12,000 to 23,000 people, St Ives has the 94th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Stamford, Maghull and Frimley, higher than Newport Pagnell, Omagh and Abbots Langley and Kings Langley. Towns its size ↓
Many neighbourhoods rank low for crime nationally
The government’s Indices of Deprivation 2025 rank every neighbourhood in England on recorded crime. 17% of St Ives’s residents live in one of the lowest-crime 10%, and 0% in one of the highest-crime 20%. Neighbourhood ranks ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
The grade: C+ for St Ives
A fairly firm grade. Built on 1,790 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks St Ives against every UK town of 1,000 or more.
Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.
What police recorded in the last 12 months
Against the typical town its size, St Ives runs highest on bicycle theft (1.3 per 1,000 against 0.3), drugs (3.5 per 1,000 against 1.9) and shoplifting (10.1 per 1,000 against 6.1). Public order and criminal damage & arson sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 417 | 24.8 | 30.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 224 | 13.3 | 12.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 170 | 10.1 | 6.1 |
| Public order | not graded | 67 | 4 | 5.4 |
| Other theft | not graded | 66 | 3.9 | 4.4 |
| Drugs | not graded | 59 | 3.5 | 1.9 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 58 | 3.4 | 6.2 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 50 | 3 | 2.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 38 | 2.3 | 2.4 |
| Other crime | not graded | 29 | 1.7 | 1.8 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 22 | 1.3 | 0.3 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 17 | 1 | 0.7 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 5 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Robbery | Violent | 4 | 0.2 | 0.5 |
“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.
1 in 6 St Ives residents lives in one of England’s lowest-crime neighbourhoods
65% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 0% in the highest-crime 20%. The crime domain scores the risk of violence, burglary, theft and criminal damage where people live, so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.
St Ives’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (LSOA, about 1,500 people) in the English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (crime domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of England’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.
St Ives against towns its size
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kesgrave Suffolk | 14,947 | 13 | 3.3 | 2.7 | A |
| … | ||||||
| 91 | Newport Pagnell Buckinghamshire | 15,250 | 24 | 11 | 9.8 | B− |
| 92 | Omagh Fermanagh and Omagh | 20,458 | 25.9 | 9.4 | 10.3 | C+ |
| 93 | Abbots Langley and Kings Langley Hertfordshire | 18,203 | 21.8 | 13.5 | 6.4 | C+ |
| 94 | St Ives Cambridgeshire | 16,818 | 26.2 | 9.3 | 17.7 | C+ |
| 95 | Lymington Hampshire | 14,870 | 25.8 | 9.7 | 12.6 | C+ |
| 96 | Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay Staffordshire | 17,647 | 24.7 | 10.8 | 9.8 | C+ |
| 97 | Street Somerset | 12,707 | 28.3 | 7.3 | 12.4 | C+ |
| … | ||||||
| 106 | Ely Cambridgeshire | 19,185 | 25.5 | 11.3 | 16.2 | C+ |
| … | ||||||
| 174 | Whittlesey Cambridgeshire | 13,833 | 33 | 11.6 | 8.5 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 206 | March Cambridgeshire | 21,345 | 37.8 | 12.7 | 11 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 317 | Haverfordwest Dyfed | 12,088 | 91.4 | 28.6 | 32.3 | D− |
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 St Ives, and others in Cambridgeshire.
Police name a suspect about as often as across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 65% of St Ives’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 13% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (65% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 8% of violent and 6% of household crimes reached court.
The latest outcome police.uk shows for each crime recorded in the first of the three years (September 2023 to August 2024), so most cases have closed. 598 crimes.
How crime in St Ives has moved
“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).
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 -5% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles +0% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft -30% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour +12% (towns its size -4%).
Lowest recorded crime in St Ives West, St Ives East and St Ives South; highest in St Ives South
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Ives West | 2,965 | 16.6 | 4.8 | |
| St Ives East | 6,633 | 17 | 6.9 | |
| St Ives South | 7,220 | 36.7 | 12.1 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 214 | 32% shoplifting & theft |
| Nightclubs | 120 | 36% violent |
| Shopping areas | 86 | 47% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 21 | 38% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so St Ives South records 2.2× the violent crime per resident of the rest of St Ives. police.uk places each crime at an anonymous map point; some are named for the kind of place (a supermarket, a car park), and each row adds up every place of that kind in St Ives. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside St Ives’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Crime in St Ives per 1,000 residents
A crime isn’t a victim: one person can report several, and crimes in a town centre often involve visitors rather than residents.
And about 9 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 16 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
One person died in collisions on St Ives’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 78 collisions with injuries inside St Ives in five years, in which one person died (1 was a cyclist). 22 people were killed or seriously injured: 7 on foot and 6 on a bicycle.
That is about what is typical for UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people: at their median rate (0.9 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of St Ives’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so St Ives’s own rate (1.2) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, St Ives had 26.2 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, about the same as the median for UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people (23.8).
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 uses the Department for Transport’s adjusted figures, which even out the police forces’ different ways of recording injuries. There’s no national rate here: more than half of road deaths in England and Wales (58%) happen outside every town’s built-up area. Source: DfT road casualty statistics (STATS19), 2021–2025.
Collisions police recorded inside St Ives’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around St Ives
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Ives | 16,818 | 26.2 | 9.3 | C+ |
| Hemingford Grey | 3,372 | 6.8 | 7.8 | A |
| Wyton | 1,248 | 16.6 | 5.3 | A− |
| Houghton | 1,368 | 13.2 | 6.1 | A− |
| Needingworth | 2,059 | 14.3 | 5.3 | A− |
| Fenstanton | 3,015 | 28.3 | 10.2 | C+ |
| Hilton | 1,052 | 7.6 | 6 | A+ |
| Godmanchester | 7,714 | 27.9 | 9.7 | C+ |
St Ives records more graded crime per resident than 5 of its 7 neighbours; only Fenstanton and Godmanchester record more. Hemingford Grey, 1.5 miles away, records 6.8 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against St Ives’s 26.2.
Per 1,000 residents a year, the same three years. Tap a town for its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Where crimes happen, not where victims live. police.uk places each crime at a point near where it happened. Town centres with shops, stations, a hospital and nightlife record more crime per resident, and residents of nearby villages who come in to shop or go out are part of that count.
- Bigger towns record more per resident. Across UK towns, recorded crime per resident rises steeply with size, more than in the U.S., so a city’s grade sits low against the whole UK. The “towns its size” figures show where St Ives sits among towns like it; they are context and don’t change the grade.
- Points are approximate. police.uk moves each point to the nearest of a set of anonymous map points, so crimes near the edge of the built-up area can fall either side of it.
Questions about safety in St Ives
Is St Ives safe?
Police recorded 26.2 violent and sexual offences and 9.3 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside St Ives’s built-up area). That earns a C+ for safety: less crime per resident than 44% of UK towns. Among 317 UK towns of 12,000 to 23,000 people, St Ives is 94th from the least crime. 17% of residents live in neighbourhoods in England’s lowest-crime 10%.
What are the safest areas of St Ives?
By council ward, St Ives West, St Ives East and St Ives South record the least violent and household crime per resident: 16.6, 17 and 36.7 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 36.7 in St Ives South.
Is crime going up in St Ives?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime fell 5%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage held steady, shoplifting and theft fell 30% and anti-social behaviour rose 12%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
Is St Ives town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 120 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 36% of them violent, and St Ives South ward records 36.7 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 of its residents a year. Over the last two years, violent crime peaked in May and was lowest in September.
What is the most common crime in St Ives?
Violence & sexual offences: 417 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (170) and public order (67), with 224 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does St Ives compare with Huntingdon?
Huntingdon records 44.6 violent and sexual offences and 16.4 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against St Ives’s 26.2 and 9.3, over the same three years.
Sources: data.police.uk street-level crime, 36 months to August 2026, points inside the built-up-area boundary · ONS Census 2021, output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025, crime domain by LSOA (residents from ONS Census 2021) · Department for Transport road casualty statistics (STATS19), collisions 2021–2025, points inside the built-up-area boundary · 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.