Photo: Jaggery · CC BY-SA 2.0On violent crime, Bridgend has a higher rate per resident than 82% of UK towns
Police counts work out at 38.1 violent and sexual offences and 10.4 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage per 1,000 residents annually. It grades C− for safety on crimes police recorded inside Bridgend’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026: #15 of 32 in Mid Glamorgan. Of all the kinds of crime, public order is where Bridgend departs most from towns its size: 12.2 per 1,000 against 7.4. Violent crime was up 14% 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 Bridgend
Violent crime rose over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 14% more violent crime per resident in Bridgend than in the year before; across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more violent crime held steady. Burglary, vehicle crime and criminal damage fell 5% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
Less crime than many places its size
Of 127 UK towns and cities of 36,000 to 70,000 people, Bridgend has the 42nd lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Salisbury, Weymouth and Long Eaton, higher than Bexhill-on-Sea, Hinckley and Welwyn Garden City. Towns its size ↓
Many neighbourhoods rank low for crime in Wales
The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 ranks every neighbourhood in Wales on community safety. 19% of Bridgend’s residents live in one of the lowest-crime 10%, and 8% 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.
The grade: C− for Bridgend
A firm grade. Built on 7,501 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Bridgend 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, Bridgend runs highest on public order (12.2 per 1,000 against 7.4) and other crime (2.7 per 1,000 against 2.1). Burglary and vehicle crime sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 2,062 | 39.8 | 38.6 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 740 | 14.3 | 17.5 |
| Public order | not graded | 629 | 12.2 | 7.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 405 | 7.8 | 10.3 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 305 | 5.9 | 7.5 |
| Other theft | not graded | 211 | 4.1 | 6.6 |
| Drugs | not graded | 193 | 3.7 | 3.8 |
| Other crime | not graded | 140 | 2.7 | 2.1 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 107 | 2.1 | 4.9 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 81 | 1.6 | 3.4 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 39 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| Robbery | Violent | 36 | 0.7 | 1.4 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 20 | 0.4 | 0.9 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 17 | 0.3 | 0.7 |
“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.
Police in Bridgend identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 56% of Bridgend’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 9% 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 11% of violent and 12% 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. 2,479 crimes.
How crime in Bridgend has moved
“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 +14% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles -5% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft +16% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour +9% (towns its size -2%).
1 in 5 Bridgend residents lives in one of Wales’s lowest-crime neighbourhoods
54% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of Wales’s neighbourhoods, and 8% 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.
Bridgend’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.
Towns its size: Bridgend comes 42nd of 127
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Castlereagh Lisburn and Castlereagh | 58,763 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 7.1 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 39 | Bexhill-on-Sea East Sussex | 43,750 | 33.4 | 13.7 | 19.1 | C |
| 40 | Hinckley Leicestershire | 50,729 | 30.5 | 16.7 | 15.3 | C |
| 41 | Welwyn Garden City Hertfordshire | 51,504 | 32.8 | 14.5 | 20.1 | C |
| 42 | Bridgend Mid Glamorgan | 51,751 | 38.1 | 10.4 | 12.8 | C− |
| 43 | Eastleigh Hampshire | 48,355 | 37.8 | 10.7 | 12.2 | C− |
| 44 | Stourbridge West Midlands | 56,961 | 33 | 16.1 | 16.3 | C− |
| 45 | Neath West Glamorgan | 40,738 | 39.5 | 9.9 | 9.1 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 78 | Aberdare Mid Glamorgan | 37,675 | 46.4 | 13.4 | 9.6 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 90 | Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan | 39,542 | 45.6 | 19.1 | 25.4 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 127 | 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 Bridgend, and others in Mid Glamorgan.
Crime in Bridgend 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 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 Bryntirion, Laleston and Merthyr Mawr, Brackla West Central and Cefn-glas; highest in Bridgend Central
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bryntirion, Laleston and Merthyr Mawr | 8,033 | 20 | 4.6 | |
| Brackla West Central | 3,482 | 23.4 | 6.7 | |
| Cefn-glas | 4,125 | 26.4 | 5.2 | |
| Brackla West | 2,733 | 28.5 | 6.8 | |
| Brackla East Central | 2,521 | 33.8 | 7 | |
| Coity Higher | 11,063 | 35.3 | 7.4 | |
| Brackla East and Coychurch Lower | 4,131 | 34.9 | 8 | |
| Oldcastle | 5,171 | 46.5 | 14.5 | |
| Bridgend Central | 10,073 | 66.8 | 22.6 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 773 | 34% violent |
| Prisons | 673 | 65% violent |
| Supermarkets | 287 | 56% shoplifting & theft |
| Bus and coach stations | 186 | 37% violent |
| Police stations | 170 | 54% violent |
| Shopping areas | 112 | 31% violent |
| Nightclubs | 111 | 62% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 100 | 83% shoplifting & theft |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 96 | 45% violent |
| College and university buildings | 54 | 59% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Bridgend Central records 2.1× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Bridgend. 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 Bridgend. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Bridgend’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
No one died in a collision on Bridgend’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 79 collisions with injuries inside Bridgend in five years. 17 people were killed or seriously injured: 9 on foot and 1 on a bicycle.
That is fewer than is typical for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more: at their median rate (1.1 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Bridgend’s size would see about 3 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Bridgend’s own rate (0.0) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Bridgend had 6.6 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, below the median for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more (30.3).
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 Bridgend’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Bridgend
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bridgend | 51,751 | 38.1 | 10.4 | C− |
| Pen-y-fai | 2,301 | 10.3 | 5.1 | A |
| Sarn | 11,867 | 37 | 9.4 | C |
| Pencoed | 9,119 | 28.3 | 8.7 | C+ |
| Cefn Cribwr | 1,379 | 19.6 | 4.1 | B+ |
| Ogmore-by-Sea | 1,356 | 10.6 | 5.9 | A |
| Bettws | 2,237 | 44 | 6.4 | C− |
| Llangeinor | 1,016 | 22 | 8.5 | B− |
Bridgend records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Bettws records more. Pen-y-fai, 1.4 miles away, records 10.3 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Bridgend’s 38.1.
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
- A prison inside the boundary. police.uk counted 673 at or near a prison (65% violent) over three years. They count in Bridgend’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 Bridgend 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 Bridgend
Is Bridgend safe?
Police recorded 38.1 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 Bridgend’s built-up area). That earns a C− for safety: less crime per resident than 23% of UK towns. Among 127 UK towns of 36,000 to 70,000 people, Bridgend is 42nd from the least crime. 19% of residents live in neighbourhoods in Wales’s lowest-crime 10%.
What are the safest areas of Bridgend?
By council ward, Bryntirion, Laleston and Merthyr Mawr, Brackla West Central and Cefn-glas record the least violent and household crime per resident: 20, 23.4 and 26.4 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 66.8 in Bridgend Central.
Is crime going up in Bridgend?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime rose 14%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 5%, shoplifting and theft rose 16% and anti-social behaviour rose 9%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
Is Bridgend town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 111 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 13% of them violent, and Bridgend Central ward records 66.8 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 of its residents a year. Over the last two years, violent crime peaked in July and was lowest in December.
What is the most common crime in Bridgend?
Violence & sexual offences: 2,062 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came public order (629) and shoplifting (405), with 740 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 · 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.