Photo: TCExplorer · CC BY-SA 2.0For violent crime, Oswestry trails 80% of UK towns per resident
Violence recorded locally climbed 16% in a year. A Safety Grade of C follows from crimes police recorded inside Oswestry’s built-up area over the years September 2023 to August 2026: #15 of 19 in Shropshire. The typical town its size sees 0.5 cases of robbery per 1,000 residents; Oswestry sees 1, or 18 in the 12 months to August 2026. Per 1,000 residents a year, 37 violent and sexual offences and 10 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage were recorded.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Oswestry
Violent crime rose over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 16% more violent crime per resident in Oswestry 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 19% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
About the middle for a town its size
Of 333 UK towns of 12,000 to 24,000 people, Oswestry has the 195th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Wymondham, Ossett and Brockworth, higher than Swallownest and Aston, Kidsgrove and Ashford. 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 Oswestry
A fairly firm grade. Built on 2,468 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Oswestry against every UK town of 1,000 or more.
Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.
Police in Oswestry identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 44% of Oswestry’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 12% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (72% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 5% of violent and 5% 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. 830 crimes.
What police recorded in the last 12 months
Against the typical town its size, Oswestry runs highest on robbery (1 per 1,000 against 0.5), other theft (6.7 per 1,000 against 4.4) and violence & sexual offences (38 per 1,000 against 30.4). Burglary and vehicle crime sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 665 | 38 | 30.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 256 | 14.6 | 12.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 126 | 7.2 | 6.1 |
| Other theft | not graded | 117 | 6.7 | 4.4 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 108 | 6.2 | 6.2 |
| Public order | not graded | 100 | 5.7 | 5.4 |
| Other crime | not graded | 32 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 29 | 1.7 | 2.4 |
| Drugs | not graded | 27 | 1.5 | 1.9 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 20 | 1.1 | 2.8 |
| Robbery | Violent | 18 | 1 | 0.5 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 8 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 6 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 2 | 0.1 | 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 crime in Oswestry 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 +16% (towns its size +1%), homes and vehicles -19% (towns its size -2%), shoplifting and theft -8% (towns its size +1%), anti-social behaviour -6% (towns its size -4%).
How Oswestry’s neighbourhoods rank in England
37% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 8% 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.
Oswestry’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.
Crime in Oswestry 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 14 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 Oswestry West, Oswestry East and Oswestry South; highest in Oswestry South
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oswestry West | 3,684 | 22.9 | 6.2 | |
| Oswestry East | 9,402 | 29.7 | 7.4 | |
| Oswestry South | 4,414 | 61.8 | 18.4 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Petrol stations | 341 | 61% shoplifting & theft |
| Car parks | 341 | 36% violent |
| Nightclubs | 202 | 56% violent |
| Supermarkets | 177 | 42% shoplifting & theft |
| Bus and coach stations | 55 | 38% shoplifting & theft |
| Shopping areas | 26 | 62% shoplifting & theft |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Oswestry South records 2.2× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Oswestry. 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 Oswestry. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Oswestry’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Of 333 towns its size, Oswestry is 195th from the least graded crime
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kesgrave Suffolk | 14,947 | 13 | 3.3 | 2.7 | A |
| … | ||||||
| 71 | Newport Shropshire | 14,191 | 24.7 | 7.3 | 9.1 | B− |
| … | ||||||
| 132 | Bridgnorth Shropshire | 12,172 | 26.4 | 12.7 | 8.7 | C+ |
| … | ||||||
| 173 | Market Drayton Shropshire | 12,062 | 33.2 | 10.8 | 12.5 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 192 | Swallownest and Aston South Yorkshire | 14,912 | 31.1 | 15.3 | 7.8 | C |
| 193 | Kidsgrove Staffordshire | 15,598 | 36 | 10.5 | 8.2 | C |
| 194 | Ashford Surrey | 22,823 | 31.5 | 15.4 | 16.7 | C |
| 195 | Oswestry Shropshire | 17,500 | 37 | 10 | 17.2 | C |
| 196 | Mirfield West Yorkshire | 19,614 | 33.3 | 13.8 | 10 | C |
| 197 | Potters Bar Hertfordshire | 23,394 | 30.9 | 16.3 | 21 | C |
| 198 | Stoke Gifford Gloucestershire | 13,477 | 34.3 | 12.9 | 21.1 | C |
| … | ||||||
| 333 | Haverfordwest Dyfed | 12,088 | 91.4 | 28.6 | 32.3 | 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 Oswestry, and others in Shropshire.
One person died in collisions on Oswestry’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 65 collisions with injuries inside Oswestry in five years, in which one person died (1 was a pedestrian). 18 people were killed or seriously injured: 8 on foot and 5 on a bicycle.
That is about what 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 Oswestry’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Oswestry’s own rate (1.1) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Oswestry had 20.6 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, about the same as the median for UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people (23.8).
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 Oswestry’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Oswestry
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oswestry | 17,500 | 37 | 10 | C |
| Morda | 1,976 | 17.1 | 4.1 | A− |
| Whittington | 1,618 | 24.9 | 7.8 | B− |
| Gobowen | 3,046 | 31.9 | 11.4 | C |
| Weston Rhyn | 1,381 | 29.9 | 8.7 | C+ |
| Pant | 1,173 | 13.2 | 4.4 | A |
| St Martins | 2,692 | 24 | 5.3 | B |
| Chirk | 3,930 | 35.4 | 14.9 | C− |
Oswestry records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Chirk records more. Morda, 1.2 miles away, records 17.1 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Oswestry’s 37.
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 Oswestry 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 Oswestry
Is Oswestry safe?
Police recorded 37 violent and sexual offences and 10 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Oswestry’s built-up area). That earns a C for safety: less crime per resident than 25% of UK towns. Among 333 UK towns of 12,000 to 24,000 people, Oswestry is 195th from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Oswestry?
By council ward, Oswestry West, Oswestry East and Oswestry South record the least violent and household crime per resident: 22.9, 29.7 and 61.8 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 61.8 in Oswestry South.
Is crime going up in Oswestry?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime rose 16%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 19%, shoplifting and theft fell 8% and anti-social behaviour fell 6%. Across UK towns of 10,000 to 50,000 people, violent crime held steady.
Is Oswestry town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 202 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 56% of them violent, and Oswestry South ward records 61.8 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 Oswestry?
Violence & sexual offences: 665 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (126) and other theft (117), with 256 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.