Photo: Robin Drayton · CC BY-SA 2.0Winchester stands out for drugs: 3.3 times the rate of a typical town its size
All told, Winchester grades C for safety (#60 of 76 in Hampshire): more crime per resident than 73% of UK towns, on crimes police recorded inside its built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026. Police recorded 305 cases of drugs in the town in the 12 months to August 2026, a rate of 6.3 per 1,000 against a typical 1.9. Recorded violence fell 11% 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 Winchester
Violent crime fell over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 11% less violent crime per resident in Winchester 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 fell 14% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
Less crime than many places its size
Of 138 UK towns of 34,000 to 65,000 people, Winchester has the 43rd lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Bamber Bridge, Bexhill-on-Sea and Hinckley, higher than Wigston, Fulwood and Farnborough. 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. 15% of Winchester’s residents live in one of the lowest-crime 10%, and 16% 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.
What’s behind Winchester’s grade
A firm grade. Built on 6,559 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Winchester 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, Winchester runs highest on drugs (6.3 per 1,000 against 1.9), shoplifting (11.7 per 1,000 against 6.1) and other theft (6.3 per 1,000 against 4.4). Anti-social behaviour and vehicle crime sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 1,551 | 32 | 30.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 566 | 11.7 | 6.1 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 379 | 7.8 | 12.4 |
| Public order | not graded | 358 | 7.4 | 5.4 |
| Other theft | not graded | 306 | 6.3 | 4.4 |
| Drugs | not graded | 305 | 6.3 | 1.9 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 233 | 4.8 | 6.2 |
| Other crime | not graded | 123 | 2.5 | 1.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 104 | 2.1 | 2.4 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 72 | 1.5 | 2.8 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 33 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 28 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| Robbery | Violent | 28 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 22 | 0.5 | 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 Winchester 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 -11% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles -14% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft +15% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour +19% (towns its size -4%).
Lowest recorded crime in Badger Farm and Oliver's Battery, St Barnabas and St Paul; highest in The Worthys
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Badger Farm and Oliver's Battery | 4,053 | 12.1 | 6.9 | |
| St Barnabas | 9,106 | 15.9 | 5.2 | |
| St Paul | 9,992 | 39.2 | 10.2 | |
| St Luke | 6,205 | 41.8 | 10.1 | |
| St Bartholomew | 9,298 | 39.1 | 13.3 | |
| St Michael | 8,996 | 46.4 | 12.6 | |
| The Worthys | 836 | 71.4 | 22.3 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Shopping areas | 780 | 65% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 456 | 62% shoplifting & theft |
| Car parks | 407 | 34% violent |
| Supermarkets | 367 | 52% shoplifting & theft |
| Hospitals | 256 | 60% violent |
| Police stations | 56 | 38% violent |
| College and university buildings | 31 | 55% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so The Worthys records 2.1× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Winchester. 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 Winchester. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Winchester’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Set against 138 towns its size, Winchester is 43rd
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Castlereagh Lisburn and Castlereagh | 58,763 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 7.1 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 6 | Fleet Hampshire | 37,800 | 20.6 | 7 | 7.4 | B |
| … | ||||||
| 10 | Locks Heath Hampshire | 35,744 | 23 | 7.7 | 9 | B− |
| … | ||||||
| 12 | Horndean Hampshire | 34,046 | 24.2 | 7.9 | 7.5 | B− |
| … | ||||||
| 31 | Waterlooville Hampshire | 34,766 | 33.7 | 8.4 | 12.8 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 40 | Wigston Leicestershire | 34,728 | 30.7 | 14 | 13.8 | C |
| 41 | Fulwood Lancashire | 34,693 | 32.1 | 12.7 | 9.4 | C |
| 42 | Farnborough Hampshire | 60,665 | 32 | 12.8 | 16.7 | C |
| 43 | Winchester Hampshire | 48,486 | 35 | 10.4 | 18.4 | C |
| 44 | Trowbridge Wiltshire | 43,753 | 33.5 | 12 | 15.7 | C |
| 45 | Canvey Island Essex | 38,004 | 33.6 | 12.6 | 9.7 | C |
| 46 | Dunstable Bedfordshire | 34,498 | 31.3 | 14.9 | 12.6 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 138 | Bridgwater Somerset | 47,846 | 76.8 | 18.9 | 29.3 | 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 Winchester, and others in Hampshire.
For every 1,000 residents, about 33 violent and sexual offences in the 12 months to August 2026
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 8 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 19 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Police name a suspect about as often as across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 65% of Winchester’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 16% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (60% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 8% of violent and 5% 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. 2,255 crimes.
1 in 7 Winchester residents lives in one of England’s lowest-crime neighbourhoods
43% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 16% 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.
Winchester’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.
One person died in collisions on Winchester’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 254 collisions with injuries inside Winchester in five years, in which one person died. 60 people were killed or seriously injured: 20 on foot and 15 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 Winchester’s size would see about 2 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Winchester’s own rate (0.4) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Winchester had 24.6 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). 33% 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 Winchester’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Winchester
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winchester | 48,486 | 35 | 10.4 | C |
| Littleton | 1,506 | 13.5 | 3.1 | A |
| Kings Worthy | 4,631 | 20 | 7.7 | B |
| Twyford | 1,482 | 9.2 | 4.3 | A+ |
| Compton | 1,307 | 7.1 | 6.1 | A+ |
| South Wonston | 2,686 | 5.5 | 3.7 | A+ |
| Otterbourne | 1,252 | 11.7 | 9.9 | A− |
| Colden Common | 3,827 | 15.6 | 7.9 | B+ |
Winchester records more graded crime per resident than every neighbour in the table. Littleton, 1.8 miles away, records 13.5 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Winchester’s 35.
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
- Big public sites inside the boundary. police.uk counted 256 at or near a hospital over three years. They count in Winchester’s rate, as they would for any town that has them.
- 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 Winchester 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 Winchester
Is Winchester safe?
Police recorded 35 violent and sexual offences and 10.4 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Winchester’s built-up area). That earns a C for safety: less crime per resident than 27% of UK towns. Among 138 UK towns of 34,000 to 65,000 people, Winchester is 43rd from the least crime. 15% of residents live in neighbourhoods in England’s lowest-crime 10%.
What are the safest areas of Winchester?
By council ward, Badger Farm and Oliver's Battery, St Barnabas and St Paul record the least violent and household crime per resident: 12.1, 15.9 and 39.2 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 71.4 in The Worthys.
Is crime going up in Winchester?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime fell 11%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 14%, shoplifting and theft rose 15% and anti-social behaviour rose 19%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
What is the most common crime in Winchester?
Violence & sexual offences: 1,551 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (566) and public order (358), with 379 reports of anti-social behaviour.
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.