Photo: John Fielding from Norwich, UK · CC BY 2.0Per resident, Broadstairs records more burglary, vehicle crime and damage than three in four UK towns
Recorded violence fell 9% in a year. Annual rates stand at 31.6 violent and sexual offences and 13.5 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage for every thousand residents. Its letter for safety is C, worked out from crimes police recorded inside Broadstairs’s built-up area over September 2023 to August 2026: #46 of 87 in Kent.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Broadstairs
Violent crime fell over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 9% less violent crime per resident in Broadstairs 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 27% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
About the middle for a town its size
Of 242 UK towns of 18,000 to 35,000 people, Broadstairs has the 103rd lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Dunstable, Deal and Ashford, higher than Eastwood, Wigston and Fulwood. Towns its size ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
The grade: C for Broadstairs
A firm grade. Built on 3,470 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Broadstairs 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, Broadstairs runs highest on criminal damage & arson (7.8 per 1,000 against 6.2), anti-social behaviour (15.2 per 1,000 against 12.4) and shoplifting (7.3 per 1,000 against 6.1). Public order and burglary sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 749 | 29.1 | 30.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 393 | 15.2 | 12.4 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 201 | 7.8 | 6.2 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 189 | 7.3 | 6.1 |
| Other theft | not graded | 115 | 4.5 | 4.4 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 64 | 2.5 | 2.8 |
| Public order | not graded | 63 | 2.4 | 5.4 |
| Drugs | not graded | 52 | 2 | 1.9 |
| Other crime | not graded | 43 | 1.7 | 1.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 26 | 1 | 2.4 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 16 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| Robbery | Violent | 15 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 9 | 0.3 | 0.7 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 6 | 0.2 | 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 Broadstairs’s neighbourhoods rank in England
11% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 15% 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.
Broadstairs’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.
How crime in Broadstairs 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 -9% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles -27% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft -22% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour +11% (towns its size -4%).
Crime in Broadstairs 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 11 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 13 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 Kingsgate, Viking and St Peters; highest in Thanet Villages
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingsgate | 1,767 | 14.7 | 3.2 | |
| Viking | 7,271 | 29.2 | 11.5 | |
| St Peters | 7,024 | 29 | 15.4 | |
| Beacon Road | 4,685 | 30.9 | 13.9 | |
| Bradstowe | 3,949 | 35.9 | 14.4 | |
| Thanet Villages | 595 | 53.2 | 11.2 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarkets | 406 | 58% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 86 | 34% violent |
| College and university buildings | 59 | 54% violent |
| Car parks | 34 | 32% anti-social behaviour |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 25 | 40% anti-social behaviour |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Thanet Villages records 1.8× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Broadstairs. 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 Broadstairs. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Broadstairs’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Among 242 towns its size, Broadstairs ranks 103rd for the least graded crime
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heswall Merseyside | 29,082 | 14.3 | 5.5 | 3.8 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 43 | Sevenoaks Kent | 26,474 | 19.1 | 14.8 | 17.1 | B− |
| … | ||||||
| 73 | Larkfield Kent | 26,147 | 25.2 | 13.9 | 9.5 | C+ |
| … | ||||||
| 87 | Whitstable Kent | 32,185 | 27.1 | 13.3 | 19.4 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 100 | Eastwood Nottinghamshire | 18,890 | 29.8 | 14.9 | 22.6 | C |
| 101 | Wigston Leicestershire | 34,728 | 30.7 | 14 | 13.8 | C |
| 102 | Fulwood Lancashire | 34,693 | 32.1 | 12.7 | 9.4 | C |
| 103 | Broadstairs Kent | 25,780 | 31.6 | 13.5 | 15.1 | C |
| 104 | Letchworth Hertfordshire | 33,993 | 32.7 | 12.6 | 14.2 | C |
| 105 | Cramlington Northumberland | 28,846 | 31 | 14.4 | 13.4 | C |
| 106 | Coleraine Causeway Coast and Glens | 24,483 | 33.6 | 12.4 | 13.2 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 108 | Deal Kent | 28,992 | 34 | 12.8 | 8.1 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 242 | 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 Broadstairs, and others in Kent.
Police name a suspect about as often as across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 69% of Broadstairs’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 19% 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. 1,158 crimes.
Five people died in collisions on Broadstairs’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 235 collisions with injuries inside Broadstairs in five years, in which five people died (1 was a pedestrian). 50 people were killed or seriously injured: 16 on foot and 5 on a bicycle.
That is more than 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 Broadstairs’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Broadstairs’s own rate (3.9) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Broadstairs had 38.8 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). 32% 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 Broadstairs’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Broadstairs
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broadstairs | 25,780 | 31.6 | 13.5 | C |
| Ramsgate | 42,031 | 61.3 | 20.6 | D− |
| Margate | 63,315 | 56.1 | 17.5 | D |
| Cliffs End | 1,284 | 28.8 | 20 | C− |
| Minster (Thanet) | 4,739 | 46.2 | 13.3 | D |
| Sandwich | 4,258 | 42.7 | 15.9 | D |
| Ash (Dover) | 2,529 | 30.1 | 12.1 | C |
| Eastry | 2,388 | 19 | 7 | B+ |
Broadstairs records more graded crime per resident than 2 of its 7 neighbours. Ash (Dover), 8.5 miles away, records 30.1 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Broadstairs’s 31.6.
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 Broadstairs 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 Broadstairs
Is Broadstairs safe?
Police recorded 31.6 violent and sexual offences and 13.5 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Broadstairs’s built-up area). That earns a C for safety: less crime per resident than 27% of UK towns. Among 242 UK towns of 18,000 to 35,000 people, Broadstairs is 103rd from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Broadstairs?
By council ward, Kingsgate, Viking and St Peters record the least violent and household crime per resident: 14.7, 29.2 and 29 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 53.2 in Thanet Villages.
Is crime going up in Broadstairs?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime fell 9%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 27%, shoplifting and theft fell 22% and anti-social behaviour rose 11%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
What is the most common crime in Broadstairs?
Violence & sexual offences: 749 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came criminal damage & arson (201) and shoplifting (189), with 393 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does Broadstairs compare with Margate?
Margate records 56.1 violent and sexual offences and 17.5 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against Broadstairs’s 31.6 and 13.5, 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.