Photo: Jaggery · CC BY-SA 2.0Per resident, Rhyl records more crime than almost every UK town
Police recorded 52 cases of bicycle theft in Rhyl in the 12 months to August 2026, a rate of 1.9 per 1,000 against a typical 0.3. The grade is D−, built on crimes police recorded inside the town’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026. Violence and property crime split as 89.1 violent and sexual offences and 22.9 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage per 1,000 residents a year.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Rhyl
One ward carries much of the rate
Rhyl West ward, where 68% of Rhyl’s shoplifting and theft is recorded, recorded 3,623 of Rhyl’s 7,202 violent and sexual offences in three years: 245.9 per 1,000 of its own residents a year. Across the rest of Rhyl the figure is 52.7. Where in Rhyl ↓
Neighbourhood ranks
59% of Rhyl’s residents live in a neighbourhood ranked in the highest-crime 20% of Wales (WIMD 2025 community safety), and 0% in the lowest-crime 30%. Neighbourhood ranks ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
What’s behind Rhyl’s grade
A firm grade. Built on 9,048 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Rhyl 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, Rhyl runs highest on bicycle theft (1.9 per 1,000 against 0.3), drugs (8.1 per 1,000 against 1.9) and shoplifting (19 per 1,000 against 6.1).
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 2,320 | 86 | 30.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 991 | 36.7 | 12.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 513 | 19 | 6.1 |
| Public order | not graded | 406 | 15 | 5.4 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 392 | 14.5 | 6.2 |
| Other theft | not graded | 267 | 9.9 | 4.4 |
| Drugs | not graded | 218 | 8.1 | 1.9 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 119 | 4.4 | 2.4 |
| Other crime | not graded | 103 | 3.8 | 1.8 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 71 | 2.6 | 2.8 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 57 | 2.1 | 0.7 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 52 | 1.9 | 0.3 |
| Robbery | Violent | 19 | 0.7 | 0.5 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 18 | 0.7 | 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.
59% of Rhyl residents live in one of Wales’s highest-crime neighbourhoods
0% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of Wales’s neighbourhoods, and 59% in the highest-crime 20%. The community safety domain scores recorded crime, anti-social behaviour and fire incidents where people live, so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.
Rhyl’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (LSOA, about 1,500 people) in the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 (community safety domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of Wales’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.
How Rhyl compares with UK towns of 19,000 to 36,000
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heswall Merseyside | 29,082 | 14.3 | 5.5 | 3.8 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 204 | Colwyn Bay Clwyd | 29,273 | 58.1 | 15.4 | 17.8 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 225 | Gainsborough Lincolnshire | 21,899 | 66.4 | 32 | 30.1 | D− |
| 226 | Eston North Yorkshire | 29,625 | 62.1 | 42.7 | 27.4 | D− |
| 227 | Skegness Lincolnshire | 20,701 | 79.4 | 27.6 | 41.7 | D− |
| 228 | Rhyl Clwyd | 26,982 | 89.1 | 22.9 | 29 | D− |
| 229 | Great Yarmouth Norfolk | 28,979 | 105 | 32.9 | 33.7 | 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 Rhyl, and others in Clwyd.
Police in Rhyl identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 53% of Rhyl’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 17% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (63% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 6% of violent and 7% 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. 3,080 crimes.
Lowest recorded crime in Rhyl T? Newydd, Rhyl South and Rhyl East; highest in Rhyl West
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rhyl T? Newydd | 4,203 | 32.3 | 8.2 | |
| Rhyl South | 3,456 | 36.4 | 8.9 | |
| Rhyl East | 4,650 | 39.2 | 13 | |
| Rhyl Trellewelyn | 4,198 | 48.3 | 7.1 | |
| Rhyl South West | 5,564 | 93 | 23.5 | |
| Rhyl West | 4,911 | 245.9 | 65 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 1,527 | 48% violent |
| Shopping areas | 624 | 44% shoplifting & theft |
| Bus and coach stations | 436 | 45% violent |
| Nightclubs | 373 | 60% violent |
| Petrol stations | 211 | 60% shoplifting & theft |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 168 | 34% violent |
| College and university buildings | 27 | 37% anti-social behaviour |
| Supermarkets | 23 | 61% shoplifting & theft |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Rhyl West records 4.7× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Rhyl. 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 Rhyl. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Rhyl’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Crime in Rhyl 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 22 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 32 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Violent crime held steady over the year
“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 +2% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles -8% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft +5% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour +7% (towns its size -4%).
One person died in collisions on Rhyl’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 147 collisions with injuries inside Rhyl in five years, in which one person died (1 was a pedestrian). 50 people were killed or seriously injured: 24 on foot and 8 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 Rhyl’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Rhyl’s own rate (0.7) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Rhyl had 37.3 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, above the median for UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people (23.8). 48% of them were on foot, against 30% across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
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 Rhyl’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Rhyl
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rhyl | 26,982 | 89.1 | 22.9 | D− |
| Rhuddlan | 3,791 | 35.4 | 7.4 | C |
| Kinmel Bay | 9,016 | 61.6 | 15.2 | D− |
| Meliden | 2,002 | 38.5 | 8.2 | C |
| Prestatyn | 16,678 | 41.3 | 12.2 | C− |
| Dyserth | 2,038 | 27.3 | 5.6 | B− |
| Bodelwyddan | 1,785 | 99.5 | 15.9 | D− |
| St Asaph | 3,483 | 39.3 | 12.5 | C− |
Rhyl records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Bodelwyddan records more. Rhuddlan, 1.8 miles away, records 35.4 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Rhyl’s 89.1.
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 Rhyl 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 Rhyl
Is Rhyl safe?
Police recorded 89.1 violent and sexual offences and 22.9 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Rhyl’s built-up area). That earns a D− for safety: behind almost every UK town. Among UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, Rhyl has less crime per resident than 0%.
What are the safest areas of Rhyl?
By council ward, Rhyl T? Newydd, Rhyl South and Rhyl East record the least violent and household crime per resident: 32.3, 36.4 and 39.2 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 245.9 in Rhyl West.
Is crime going up in Rhyl?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime held steady, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 8%, shoplifting and theft held steady and anti-social behaviour rose 7%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
Is Rhyl town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 373 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 60% of them violent, and Rhyl West ward records 245.9 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 of its residents a year. Over the last two years, violent crime peaked in August and was lowest in September.
What is the most common crime in Rhyl?
Violence & sexual offences: 2,320 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (513) and public order (406), with 991 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does Rhyl compare with Colwyn Bay?
Colwyn Bay records 58.1 violent and sexual offences and 15.4 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against Rhyl’s 89.1 and 22.9, 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 · Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025, community safety domain by LSOA · 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.