Cannock Chase vs Newcastle-under-Lyme

Cannock Chase records less crime for its size than Newcastle-under-Lyme: 84.4 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to June 2026, against 87.4. That is about 4% more. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority, and neither area is uniform: the gap between neighbourhoods inside one of these places is usually wider than the gap between the two of them.

Cannock Chase 84.4 crimes per 1,000 residents, Staffordshire
Newcastle-under-Lyme 87.4 crimes per 1,000 residents, Staffordshire

The England and Wales average is 91.2 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents. Cannock Chase is about 7% below it. Newcastle-under-Lyme is close to it.

Side by side

Recorded crime in Cannock Chase and Newcastle-under-Lyme
  Cannock Chase Newcastle-under-Lyme
Crimes per 1,000 residents 84.4 87.4
Offences in the year to June 2026 8,788 11,166
Residents 104,088 127,727
Change on the previous 12 months +2.3% +12.5%
Rank in England and Wales 160 of 314 144 of 314

Rank 1 is the highest recorded rate. Both areas are local authority areas, so the two populations are counted the same way and the rates are directly comparable.

Offence by offence

The mix differs more than the totals do. Cannock Chase records about 1.4 times as much vehicle crime per resident. Newcastle-under-Lyme records about 1.4 times as much burglary per resident.

Rate per 1,000 residents by offence
Offence, per 1,000 residents Cannock Chase Newcastle-under-Lyme
Violence and sexual offences 37.3 36.5
Anti-social behaviour 11.7 15.0
Public order 7.0 7.2
Shoplifting 6.8 6.1
Criminal damage and arson 5.2 5.8
Other theft 3.8 5.0
Vehicle crime 3.8 2.7
Drugs 2.5 2.4
Burglary 1.9 2.7
Other crime 2.0 1.7
Robbery 0.8 0.9
Possession of weapons 0.8 0.8
Bicycle theft 0.4 0.5
Theft from the person 0.2 0.2
All recorded crime 84.4 87.4

Both places since 2011

Each line is a rolling twelve-month rate per 1,000 residents, so seasonality is taken out and the two areas are on the same scale despite their different sizes.

Cannock Chase Newcastle-under-Lyme
2550751000Covid lockdown84 Cannock87 Newcastle-20122014201620182020202220242026
A line breaks wherever the twelve months behind it include a return the force never filed, because a twelve-month total missing three of its months is not a total.

Questions

Is Cannock Chase safer than Newcastle-under-Lyme?

Cannock Chase records less crime for its size than Newcastle-under-Lyme: 84.4 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to June 2026, against 87.4. That is about 4% more. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority, and neither area is uniform: the gap between neighbourhoods inside one of these places is usually wider than the gap between the two of them.

What does this comparison not tell you?

Recorded crime counts what the police wrote down, so a place where people report more looks worse than a place where they report less, whatever actually happened. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority: a town with one busy centre and quiet suburbs carries a rate that describes neither. And the denominator is residents, so somewhere that fills up with commuters, students or shoppers by day records crime against a population it is not credited with. How the figures work sets all of this out.

Where else can I compare?

Pick any other two areas, or start from Cannock Chase or Newcastle-under-Lyme and use the neighbouring areas listed on each. The ranked lists of the safest places and the highest crime rates cover all of them at once.

Figures cover the 12 months to June 2026. Police data is published roughly two months in arrears.