Merton has less crime per resident than 93% of UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more

Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.

Against the typical town its size, Merton runs highest on theft from the person (1.4 per 1,000 against 0.7), vehicle crime (6.4 per 1,000 against 4.9) and bicycle theft (1.1 per 1,000 against 0.9). Other crime and criminal damage & arson sit below it.

“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 and cities of 50,000 or more.

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 Merton, and others in London.

No suspect was identified for 85% of Merton’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 41% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (39% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 7% of violent and 3% 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. 8,794 crimes.

30% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 5% 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.

Merton’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.

“Towns its size” pools all UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more that police.uk covers each month (Greater Manchester has no data).

Rolling three-month rate, per 1,000 residents a year. In the 12 months to August 2026 against the 12 before: violent +7% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles -18% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft -18% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour -10% (towns its size -2%).

A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Figge's Marsh records 1.6× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Merton. 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 Merton. We show only these, never streets or homes.

Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Merton’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.

And about 12 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 14 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.

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 Merton’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.

Merton records more graded crime per resident than 3 of its 7 neighbours. Worcester Park and Stoneleigh, 3.8 miles away, records 13.1 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Merton’s 24.2.

Per 1,000 residents a year, the same three years. Tap a town for its safety page.