Photo: Christine Matthews · CC BY-SA 2.0Set against UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, Harrogate records less crime than 95%
Recorded violence held steady in a year. Its police logs show 27.3 violent and sexual offences and 10.5 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 Harrogate
One ward carries much of the rate
Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate ward, where 39% of Harrogate’s shoplifting and theft is recorded, recorded 1,423 of Harrogate’s 6,179 violent and sexual offences in three years: 56.8 per 1,000 of its own residents a year. Across the rest of Harrogate the figure is 23.6. Where in Harrogate ↓
Less crime than most places its size
Of 92 UK towns and cities of 53,000 to 102,000 people, Harrogate has the 6th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Woking, Craigavon and Brentwood, higher than Metropolitan Newtownabbey, Carlton and Bebington. 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. 21% of Harrogate’s residents live in one of the lowest-crime 10%, and 6% 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.
How Harrogate comes out at C+
A firm grade. Built on 8,553 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Harrogate against every UK town of 1,000 or more.
Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.
Among 92 towns its size, Harrogate ranks 6th for the least graded crime
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Castlereagh Lisburn and Castlereagh | 58,763 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 7.1 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 3 | Metropolitan Newtownabbey Antrim and Newtownabbey | 67,599 | 21.3 | 9 | 8.3 | B |
| 4 | Carlton Nottinghamshire | 53,555 | 23.2 | 9.4 | 13 | B− |
| 5 | Bebington Merseyside | 57,607 | 25.6 | 8.3 | 8.7 | B− |
| 6 | Harrogate North Yorkshire | 75,522 | 27.3 | 10.5 | 13.7 | C+ |
| 7 | St Albans Hertfordshire | 75,544 | 25.3 | 15.2 | 21 | C |
| 8 | Maidenhead Berkshire | 67,391 | 27.5 | 13.8 | 11.3 | C |
| 9 | Halesowen West Midlands | 60,103 | 27.2 | 14.9 | 9.9 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 74 | Scarborough North Yorkshire | 59,505 | 58.8 | 17.2 | 22.9 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 92 | Doncaster South Yorkshire | 87,440 | 72.6 | 38.2 | 43.3 | 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 Harrogate, and others in North Yorkshire.
What police recorded in the last 12 months
Drugs and vehicle crime sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 1,984 | 26.3 | 38.6 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 1,110 | 14.7 | 17.5 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 725 | 9.6 | 10.3 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 374 | 5 | 7.5 |
| Other theft | not graded | 337 | 4.5 | 6.6 |
| Public order | not graded | 285 | 3.8 | 7.4 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 174 | 2.3 | 3.4 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 158 | 2.1 | 4.9 |
| Drugs | not graded | 136 | 1.8 | 3.8 |
| Other crime | not graded | 104 | 1.4 | 2.1 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 40 | 0.5 | 0.9 |
| Robbery | Violent | 39 | 0.5 | 1.4 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 36 | 0.5 | 1.1 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 16 | 0.2 | 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.
1 in 5 Harrogate residents lives in one of England’s lowest-crime neighbourhoods
44% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 6% 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.
Harrogate’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.
Police in Harrogate identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 59% of Harrogate’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 7% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (66% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 12% of violent and 6% 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. 2,899 crimes.
Lowest recorded crime in Oatlands & Pannal, Killinghall, Hampsthwaite & Saltergate and Harlow & St. Georges; highest in Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oatlands & Pannal | 5,393 | 10.9 | 5.4 | |
| Killinghall, Hampsthwaite & Saltergate | 6,591 | 17.4 | 5.7 | |
| Harlow & St. Georges | 8,396 | 16.2 | 7.1 | |
| Stray, Woodlands & Hookstone | 8,077 | 17 | 7.9 | |
| Bilton Grange & New Park | 7,902 | 19.6 | 9.9 | |
| Bilton & Nidd Gorge | 7,150 | 23.8 | 10.2 | |
| Coppice Valley & Duchy | 7,149 | 27.6 | 13.9 | |
| Fairfax & Starbeck | 8,222 | 33.6 | 11.7 | |
| High Harrogate & Kingsley | 8,293 | 40.5 | 14.5 | |
| Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate | 8,349 | 56.8 | 16 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 751 | 36% anti-social behaviour |
| Supermarkets | 725 | 64% shoplifting & theft |
| Hospitals | 315 | 36% violent |
| Shopping areas | 270 | 58% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 256 | 36% shoplifting & theft |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 92 | 42% violent |
| Nightclubs | 83 | 41% violent |
| College and university buildings | 59 | 53% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate records 2.4× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Harrogate. 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 Harrogate. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Harrogate’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Crime in Harrogate 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 9 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 15 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
How crime in Harrogate 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 +2% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles -19% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft +15% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour -15% (towns its size -2%).
Three people died in collisions on Harrogate’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 309 collisions with injuries inside Harrogate in five years, in which three people died (2 were pedestrians). 77 people were killed or seriously injured: 36 on foot and 13 on a bicycle.
That is about what 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 Harrogate’s size would see about 4 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Harrogate’s own rate (0.8) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Harrogate had 20.4 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). 47% of them were on foot, against 31% across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more.
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 Harrogate’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Harrogate
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harrogate | 75,522 | 27.3 | 10.5 | C+ |
| Killinghall | 1,476 | 23.5 | 2.9 | B+ |
| Pannal | 2,530 | 9.1 | 4.1 | A+ |
| Knaresborough | 15,781 | 23.6 | 10.2 | B− |
| Hampsthwaite | 1,169 | 5.4 | 3.4 | A+ |
| Spofforth | 1,175 | 13.6 | 5.7 | A− |
| Pool-in-Wharfedale | 1,991 | 11.7 | 5.5 | A |
| Wetherby | 11,711 | 39.9 | 9.5 | C− |
Harrogate records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Wetherby records more. Killinghall, 2.3 miles away, records 23.5 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Harrogate’s 27.3.
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 315 at or near a hospital over three years. They count in Harrogate’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 Harrogate 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 Harrogate
Is Harrogate safe?
Police recorded 27.3 violent and sexual offences and 10.5 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Harrogate’s built-up area). That earns a C+ for safety: less crime per resident than 39% of UK towns. Among 92 UK towns of 53,000 to 102,000 people, Harrogate is 6th from the least crime. 21% of residents live in neighbourhoods in England’s lowest-crime 10%.
What are the safest areas of Harrogate?
By council ward, Oatlands & Pannal, Killinghall, Hampsthwaite & Saltergate and Harlow & St. Georges record the least violent and household crime per resident: 10.9, 17.4 and 16.2 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 56.8 in Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate.
Is crime going up in Harrogate?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime held steady, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 19%, shoplifting and theft rose 15% and anti-social behaviour fell 15%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
Is Harrogate town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 83 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 41% of them violent, and Valley Gardens & Central Harrogate ward records 56.8 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 February.
What is the most common crime in Harrogate?
Violence & sexual offences: 1,984 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (725) and criminal damage & arson (374), with 1,110 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.