Ribble Valley vs Wyre

Ribble Valley records less crime for its size than Wyre: 51.1 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to June 2026, against 79.6. That is about 56% 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.

Ribble Valley 51.1 crimes per 1,000 residents, Lancashire
Wyre 79.6 crimes per 1,000 residents, Lancashire

The England and Wales average is 91.2 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents. Ribble Valley is about 44% below it. Wyre is about 13% below it.

Side by side

Recorded crime in Ribble Valley and Wyre
  Ribble Valley Wyre
Crimes per 1,000 residents 51.1 79.6
Offences in the year to June 2026 3,361 9,447
Residents 65,794 118,743
Change on the previous 12 months -4.2% -6.2%
Rank in England and Wales 293 of 314 184 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. Wyre records about 3.3 times as much shoplifting, 2.9 times as much drugs and 1.7 times as much public order per resident.

Rate per 1,000 residents by offence
Offence, per 1,000 residents Ribble Valley Wyre
Violence and sexual offences 20.3 30.8
Anti-social behaviour 12.2 18.7
Criminal damage and arson 3.8 5.7
Shoplifting 1.6 5.3
Other theft 3.5 4.1
Public order 2.4 4.1
Vehicle crime 2.2 2.5
Burglary 2.1 2.1
Other crime 1.5 2.3
Drugs 0.8 2.4
Possession of weapons 0.3 0.7
Bicycle theft 0.2 0.4
Robbery 0.1 0.3
Theft from the person 0.1 0.2
All recorded crime 51.1 79.6

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.

Ribble Valley Wyre
3060901200Covid lockdown51 Ribble80 Wyre20122014201620182020202220242026
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 Ribble Valley safer than Wyre?

Ribble Valley records less crime for its size than Wyre: 51.1 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to June 2026, against 79.6. That is about 56% 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 Ribble Valley or Wyre 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.