Photo: Christopher Hilton · CC BY-SA 2.0Nantwich stands out for bicycle theft: 3.6 times the rate of a typical town its size
Burglary, vehicle crime and damage is lower than in 56% of UK towns; violent crime, lower than in only 16%. Out of every 1,000 residents, 39.5 violent and sexual offences and 8.8 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage are reported annually. Its Safety Grade, C− (#37 of 46 in Cheshire), rests on crimes police recorded inside its built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026: more crime per resident than 77% of UK towns. Violence recorded locally climbed 20% in a year.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Nantwich
Violent crime rose over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 20% more violent crime per resident in Nantwich 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 rose 21% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
More crime than many places its size
Of 308 UK towns of 13,000 to 25,000 people, Nantwich has the 190th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Wellington, Sudbury and Sunbury-on-Thames, higher than Dereham, Devizes and Newmarket. Towns its size ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
Nantwich: C− for safety, and why
A fairly firm grade. Built on 2,712 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Nantwich 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, Nantwich runs highest on bicycle theft (1.2 per 1,000 against 0.3), drugs (4.1 per 1,000 against 1.9) and public order (8.3 per 1,000 against 5.4). Vehicle crime and shoplifting sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 805 | 43 | 30.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 167 | 8.9 | 12.4 |
| Public order | not graded | 155 | 8.3 | 5.4 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 101 | 5.4 | 6.2 |
| Other theft | not graded | 91 | 4.9 | 4.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 81 | 4.3 | 6.1 |
| Drugs | not graded | 76 | 4.1 | 1.9 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 44 | 2.3 | 2.4 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 37 | 2 | 2.8 |
| Other crime | not graded | 37 | 2 | 1.8 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 23 | 1.2 | 0.3 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 12 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
| Robbery | Violent | 8 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
“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.
How crime in Nantwich 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 +20% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles +21% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft -14% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour +37% (towns its size -4%).
Crime in Nantwich 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 10 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 10 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Lowest recorded crime in Bunbury, Nantwich South and Stapeley and Nantwich North and West; highest in Wrenbury
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunbury | 914 | 31.4 | 8 | |
| Nantwich South and Stapeley | 8,342 | 34.7 | 6.9 | |
| Nantwich North and West | 8,617 | 42.6 | 10.1 | |
| Wrenbury | 868 | 62.2 | 14.6 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarkets | 495 | 75% shoplifting & theft |
| Car parks | 196 | 41% violent |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 74 | 45% anti-social behaviour |
| Bus and coach stations | 31 | 39% anti-social behaviour |
| Shopping areas | 22 | 32% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Wrenbury records 1.6× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Nantwich. 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 Nantwich. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Nantwich’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Nantwich is 190th of 308 UK towns of 13,000 to 25,000
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kesgrave Suffolk | 14,947 | 13 | 3.3 | 2.7 | A |
| … | ||||||
| 10 | Davenham Cheshire | 13,840 | 18.5 | 3.4 | 3.5 | A− |
| 11 | Poynton Cheshire | 13,015 | 16.4 | 5.4 | 8.3 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 42 | Knutsford Cheshire | 13,254 | 21.2 | 7.3 | 8.4 | B |
| … | ||||||
| 47 | Neston Cheshire | 14,963 | 23 | 6.4 | 6.7 | B |
| … | ||||||
| 187 | Dereham Norfolk | 20,788 | 37.3 | 10.5 | 16 | C− |
| 188 | Devizes Wiltshire | 19,491 | 35.8 | 12.4 | 13.7 | C− |
| 189 | Newmarket Suffolk | 18,857 | 34.6 | 13.6 | 16.9 | C− |
| 190 | Nantwich Cheshire | 18,741 | 39.5 | 8.8 | 14.1 | C− |
| 191 | Rawtenstall Lancashire | 23,683 | 33.5 | 15.4 | 13.1 | C− |
| 192 | Retford Nottinghamshire | 23,735 | 32.9 | 16.2 | 17.1 | C− |
| 193 | Bideford Devon | 19,493 | 37.9 | 11.6 | 15.1 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 308 | Sheerness Kent | 13,253 | 87.2 | 32.8 | 27.3 | 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 Nantwich, and others in Cheshire.
Police name a suspect about as often as across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 65% of Nantwich’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 12% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (56% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 10% 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. 867 crimes.
How Nantwich’s neighbourhoods rank in England
32% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 17% 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.
Nantwich’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.
No one died in a collision on Nantwich’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 94 collisions with injuries inside Nantwich in five years. 22 people were killed or seriously injured: 10 on foot and 4 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 Nantwich’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Nantwich’s own rate (0.0) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Nantwich had 23.7 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 Nantwich’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Nantwich
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nantwich | 18,741 | 39.5 | 8.8 | C− |
| Willaston (Cheshire East) | 3,653 | 21.2 | 5.3 | B+ |
| Shavington | 4,972 | 23.2 | 6.9 | B |
| Crewe | 74,116 | 51.3 | 14.3 | D |
| Audlem | 1,833 | 16 | 8 | B+ |
| Haslington | 5,042 | 17.1 | 4 | A− |
| Bunbury | 1,259 | 11.1 | 4.2 | A |
| Winterley | 1,371 | 18 | 4.1 | A− |
Nantwich records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Crewe records more. Willaston (Cheshire East), 1.7 miles away, records 21.2 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Nantwich’s 39.5.
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 Nantwich 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 Nantwich
Is Nantwich safe?
Police recorded 39.5 violent and sexual offences and 8.8 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Nantwich’s built-up area). That earns a C− for safety: less crime per resident than 23% of UK towns. Among 308 UK towns of 13,000 to 25,000 people, Nantwich is 190th from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Nantwich?
By council ward, Bunbury, Nantwich South and Stapeley and Nantwich North and West record the least violent and household crime per resident: 31.4, 34.7 and 42.6 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 62.2 in Wrenbury.
Is crime going up in Nantwich?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime rose 20%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage rose 21%, shoplifting and theft fell 14% and anti-social behaviour rose 37%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
What is the most common crime in Nantwich?
Violence & sexual offences: 805 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came public order (155) and criminal damage & arson (101), with 167 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does Nantwich compare with Crewe?
Crewe records 51.3 violent and sexual offences and 14.3 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against Nantwich’s 39.5 and 8.8, 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.