Photo: Michael Garlick · CC BY-SA 2.0Recorded crime per resident is higher in Wellingborough than in 92% of UK towns
The Safety Grade comes out at D, drawn from crimes police recorded inside Wellingborough’s built-up area through September 2023 to August 2026. Possession of weapons runs at 2.1 per 1,000 residents in the town, against 1.1 in a typical town its size: police recorded 113 in the 12 months to August 2026. Police counts work out at 48.9 violent and sexual offences and 19.1 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage per 1,000 residents annually.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Wellingborough
More crime than many places its size
Of 121 UK towns and cities of 38,000 to 73,000 people, Wellingborough has the 89th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Barrow-in-Furness, Cwmbrân and Tipton, higher than Hatfield, Folkestone and Batley. Towns its size ↓
Neighbourhood ranks
30% of Wellingborough’s residents live in a neighbourhood ranked in the highest-crime 20% of England (Indices of Deprivation 2025, crime domain), and 13% in the lowest-crime 30%. Neighbourhood ranks ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
The D for Wellingborough, and how it is built
A firm grade. Built on 11,083 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Wellingborough 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, Wellingborough runs highest on possession of weapons (2.1 per 1,000 against 1.1), robbery (2.3 per 1,000 against 1.4) and anti-social behaviour (29 per 1,000 against 17.5). Public order and shoplifting sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 2,323 | 42.7 | 38.6 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 1,576 | 29 | 17.5 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 441 | 8.1 | 4.9 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 427 | 7.8 | 7.5 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 424 | 7.8 | 10.3 |
| Public order | not graded | 334 | 6.1 | 7.4 |
| Other theft | not graded | 319 | 5.9 | 6.6 |
| Drugs | not graded | 314 | 5.8 | 3.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 194 | 3.6 | 3.4 |
| Other crime | not graded | 125 | 2.3 | 2.1 |
| Robbery | Violent | 123 | 2.3 | 1.4 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 113 | 2.1 | 1.1 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 39 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 20 | 0.4 | 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.
Crime in Wellingborough 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 20 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.
89th of 121: Wellingborough among towns its size
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Castlereagh Lisburn and Castlereagh | 58,763 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 7.1 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 57 | Corby Northamptonshire | 68,164 | 41.1 | 13.2 | 16.4 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 80 | Kettering Northamptonshire | 63,149 | 49.6 | 14.2 | 16.5 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 86 | Hatfield Hertfordshire | 41,561 | 47.2 | 19.4 | 20.7 | D |
| 87 | Folkestone Kent | 51,987 | 49.7 | 17.2 | 22 | D |
| 88 | Batley West Yorkshire | 44,494 | 48.3 | 19.3 | 15.1 | D |
| 89 | Wellingborough Northamptonshire | 54,421 | 48.9 | 19.1 | 21.7 | D |
| 90 | Gravesend Kent | 58,105 | 45.1 | 23.1 | 17.7 | D |
| 91 | Boston Lincolnshire | 45,347 | 50.7 | 17.6 | 26.7 | D |
| 92 | Wallsend Tyne and Wear | 45,351 | 47.6 | 21.7 | 23 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 121 | 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 Wellingborough, and others in Northamptonshire.
30% of Wellingborough residents live in one of England’s highest-crime neighbourhoods
13% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 30% 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.
Wellingborough’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.
Lowest recorded crime in Earls Barton, Hatton Park and Finedon; highest in Croyland and Swanspool
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earls Barton | 953 | 5.6 | 2.1 | |
| Hatton Park | 14,189 | 28.1 | 11.7 | |
| Finedon | 11,191 | 36.5 | 19.5 | |
| Brickhill and Queensway | 13,904 | 46.6 | 15.8 | |
| Croyland and Swanspool | 14,184 | 84.3 | 30.3 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarkets | 1,766 | 64% shoplifting & theft |
| Car parks | 398 | 38% violent |
| Shopping areas | 202 | 54% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 192 | 37% shoplifting & theft |
| Police stations | 190 | 48% violent |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 117 | 50% violent |
| Hospitals | 28 | 36% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Croyland and Swanspool records 2.3× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Wellingborough. 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 Wellingborough. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Wellingborough’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Police in Wellingborough identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 64% of Wellingborough’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 14% 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 7% of violent and 9% 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. 3,834 crimes.
Violent crime held steady over the year
“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 +3% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft -49% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour +10% (towns its size -2%).
Four people died in collisions on Wellingborough’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 298 collisions with injuries inside Wellingborough in five years, in which four people died (2 were pedestrians). 73 people were killed or seriously injured: 20 on foot and 11 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 Wellingborough’s size would see about 3 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Wellingborough’s own rate (1.5) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Wellingborough had 26.7 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, about the same as the median for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more (30.3). 27% 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 Wellingborough’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Wellingborough
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wellingborough | 54,421 | 48.9 | 19.1 | D |
| Great Doddington | 1,147 | 11.6 | 4.4 | A |
| Irchester | 4,543 | 18.9 | 8.2 | B |
| Finedon | 4,554 | 28.2 | 12.4 | C |
| Earls Barton | 6,067 | 19.7 | 6.9 | B+ |
| Wollaston | 3,564 | 23.5 | 6.9 | B |
| Irthlingborough | 9,308 | 29.3 | 10.8 | C+ |
| Burton Latimer | 10,440 | 25 | 6.9 | B− |
Wellingborough records more graded crime per resident than every neighbour in the table. Great Doddington, 2.1 miles away, records 11.6 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Wellingborough’s 48.9.
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 Wellingborough 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 Wellingborough
Is Wellingborough safe?
Police recorded 48.9 violent and sexual offences and 19.1 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Wellingborough’s built-up area). That earns a D for safety: less crime per resident than 8% of UK towns. Among 121 UK towns of 38,000 to 73,000 people, Wellingborough is 89th from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Wellingborough?
By council ward, Earls Barton, Hatton Park and Finedon record the least violent and household crime per resident: 5.6, 28.1 and 36.5 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 84.3 in Croyland and Swanspool.
Is crime going up in Wellingborough?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime held steady, burglary, vehicle crime and damage held steady, shoplifting and theft fell 49% and anti-social behaviour rose 10%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
What is the most common crime in Wellingborough?
Violence & sexual offences: 2,323 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came vehicle crime (441) and criminal damage & arson (427), with 1,576 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does Wellingborough compare with Kettering?
Kettering records 49.6 violent and sexual offences and 14.2 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against Wellingborough’s 48.9 and 19.1, 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.