Having decided to move house to a new area of London soon, one of the first questions that came to mind was what was the crime rate and safety record of certain areas. So far, I’ve had a vague perception that crime was “rampant” in Brixton and generally higher South of the river and in East London compared to West and South West London. But what were the actual figures? Where was the London Metropolitan Police the most effective or worst performing? Where can I walk the streets at 2am in the morning and still feel safe and not get mugged or stabbed? After searching for a while on the internet, I came across a crime mapping database that contained statistics from 2007-2008. After a bit of filtering and exporting the data to Excel, I managed to draw a few conclusions:

1) Anything close to London zone 1 seems amazingly dangerous. All the safest London boroughs were far away from the center, with Richmond upon Thames, Kingston upon Thames, Sutton, Havering, and Bexley all consistently with the lowest rates across the major crime categories.

2) The worst boroughs were located generally East of central London, with Hackney, Southwark, and Greenwich featuring prominently. Surprisingly, the City of Westminster appeared a few times in the top 10 worst crime areas, but it is probably due to the fact that there are very few inhabitants and many crimes committed by people coming in from outside the borough.

3) “Rich” South West areas like Kensington & Chelsea as well as Hammersmith & Fulham appear in a few of the top 10 worst lists, which was a shocker given their astronomical house prices.

In any case, the studies have shown that within London zones 1-3, crime rate is higher than out in the suburbs, with very few exceptions like Camden which seems to be the “safest” out of all the central London areas. If you can’t bear to move all the way out to like Kingston but still want safety, areas like Wandsworth, Waltham Forest, Hounslow, and Ealing are close enough to London and are pretty safe at the same time. So next time the estate agent or lettings agent tries to exaggerate the safety of a particular area, you can go find the real facts for yourself!

Hope this helps those trying to decide where to house-hunt! I’ve taken the effort to recreate some of the top 10 highest and lowest lists below for readers of the The London Insider:

London Boroughs with the lowest overall crime rate (per 1,000 population) in 2007/2008:

• Sutton
• Richmond upon Thames
• Harrow
• Kingston upon Thames
• Havering
• Bexley
• Bromley
• Merton
• Barnet
• Enfield
• Redbridge

Boroughs with the highest overall crime rate in 2007/2008:

• City of Westminster
• Hackney
• Southwark
• Islington
• Tower Hamlets
• Lambeth
• Greenwich
• Newham
• Hammersmith & Fulham
• Lewisham

Boroughs with the lowest overall robbery & burglary rate in 2007/2008:

• Kingston upon Thames
• Sutton
• Merton
• Havering
• Bexley
• Richmond upon Thames
• Barking & Dagenham
• Harrow
• Kensington & Chelsea
• Bromley

Boroughs with the highest overall robbery & burglary rate in 2007/2008:

• Islington
• Southwark
• Haringey
• Camden
• City of Westminster
• Lambeth
• Newham
• Greenwich
• Brent
• Hammersmith & Fulham

Boroughs with the lowest violent & sexual crime rate in 2007/2008:

• Richmond upon Thames
• Harrow
• Havering
• Sutton
• Bexley
• Enfield
• Barnet
• Kingston upon Thames
• Redbridge
• Bromley

Boroughs with the highest violent & sexual crime rate in 2007/2008:

• City of Westminster
• Hackney
• Southwark
• Lewisham
• Greenwich
• Tower Hamlets
• Newham
• Barking & Dagenham
• Hammersmith & Fulham
• Islington