Blackpool recorded 20,755 crimes in the 12 months to April 2026, a crime rate of 129.35 per 1,000 people: the highest of the 42 places CrimeRate lists in Lancashire, 80 per cent above the Lancashire average of 71.87 and roughly 90 per cent above England (around 68). The total fell 3.9 per cent on the previous year (21,605), the third fall in a row. More than half of it, 52.9 per cent, is violence and sexual offences. Blackpool is a seaside resort with a large visitor and night-time economy squeezed into a small town, which pushes a per-head rate up; the figures describe recorded incidents, not the people who live in the town.
Data: police-recorded crime, 12 months to April 2026, counts and rates from CrimeRate’s analysis of data.police.uk (Lancashire Constabulary, Blackpool; updated 7 June 2026); neighbourhood counts from police.uk, 12 months to August 2026. Shares and ratios are our own arithmetic on those figures. Updated 14 October 2026.
What is the crime rate in Blackpool?
129.35 crimes per 1,000 people in the 12 months to April 2026, according to CrimeRate. That is 20,755 offences, not counting 6,945 anti-social behaviour reports (27,700 incidents with them). The rate is 80 per cent above Lancashire (71.87) and roughly 90 per cent above England (around 68). A year earlier Blackpool recorded 21,605 offences at 135.59 per 1,000, so both the count and the rate went down.
Is Blackpool safe compared with other towns and cities?
On the per-head figure Blackpool sits above every large city we compare, and only just below Westminster in central London (125.00, 3 per cent lower). It is 21 per cent above Liverpool, 23 per cent above Birmingham and 63 per cent above Cardiff. That says more about the shape of the town than about risk to any one visitor: like Westminster, Blackpool packs bars, clubs, arcades, hotels and holiday crowds into a small area, and the crimes they generate are divided by a much smaller population base. All rates below come from the same source and method.
| Place | Per 1,000, 12 months to April 2026 | Compared with Blackpool |
|---|---|---|
| Blackpool | 129.35 | – |
| Westminster (London) | 125.00 | 3% lower |
| Burnley | 111.85 | 14% lower |
| Nottingham | 107.74 | 17% lower |
| Leeds | 107.10 | 17% lower |
| Liverpool | 106.48 | 18% lower |
| Birmingham | 105.05 | 19% lower |
| Bristol | 104.64 | 19% lower |
| Leicester | 97.87 | 24% lower |
| Preston | 91.08 | 30% lower |
| Sheffield | 84.09 | 35% lower |
| Newcastle | 82.69 | 36% lower |
| Cardiff | 79.55 | 39% lower |
| Blackburn | 76.21 | 41% lower |
| Lancashire | 71.87 | 44% lower |
For the nearest big city, read is Liverpool safe?; for another resort town measured the same way, see is Bournemouth safe?, whose rate (60.73) is less than half of Blackpool’s. Brighton (89.82) is the other big seaside comparison.
Is Blackpool the most dangerous town in Lancashire?
By recorded crime per head, Blackpool has the highest rate of the 42 places CrimeRate lists in Lancashire, ahead of Burnley (111.85), Accrington (105.43) and Morecambe (100.93). It also records the most crime of any single place: 20,755 of the county’s 126,210 offences, 16.4 per cent. The rest of the Fylde coast is much lower: Fleetwood 88.68, St Anne’s 63.74, Poulton-le-Fylde 60.25, Cleveleys 54.12 and Thornton 48.55. “Most crime per head” is not the same as “most dangerous”, because much of it is concentrated in the resort centre and the night-time economy.
| Place (Lancashire) | Crimes, 12 months to April 2026 | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Blackpool | 20,755 | 129.35 |
| Burnley | 8,898 | 111.85 |
| Accrington | 4,118 | 105.43 |
| Morecambe | 3,635 | 100.93 |
| Preston | 14,005 | 91.08 |
| Fleetwood | 2,565 | 88.68 |
| Blackburn | 11,062 | 76.21 |
| St Anne’s on the Sea | 2,025 | 63.74 |
| Poulton-le-Fylde | 844 | 60.25 |
| Cleveleys | 600 | 54.12 |
| Thornton | 966 | 48.55 |
| Ormskirk | 1,023 | 36.16 |
| Longton | 159 | 15.41 |
Source: CrimeRate Lancashire, a selection of the 42 places it lists. Lancashire as a whole recorded 126,210 offences (71.87 per 1,000), almost unchanged from 125,027 (71.71) a year earlier, so Blackpool’s fall came while the county stood still.
What kind of crime is recorded in Blackpool?
Violence and sexual offences dominate: 10,974 offences, 52.9 per cent of the total, at almost twice the Lancashire rate. The 13 categories below add up to exactly 20,755; anti-social behaviour (6,945 reports) comes on top. The last columns compare Blackpool’s rate with the Lancashire rate for the same category, from the same source.
| Category | Blackpool, 12 months to April 2026 | Per 1,000 | Share of total | Lancashire per 1,000 | Blackpool vs county |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 10,974 | 68.36 | 52.9% | 35.33 | +93% |
| Criminal damage and arson | 1,795 | 11.19 | 8.6% | 7.11 | +57% |
| Other theft | 1,545 | 9.61 | 7.4% | 5.17 | +86% |
| Public order | 1,527 | 9.53 | 7.4% | 4.86 | +96% |
| Shoplifting | 1,208 | 7.51 | 5.8% | 5.26 | +43% |
| Vehicle crime | 790 | 4.93 | 3.8% | 3.57 | +38% |
| Drugs | 728 | 4.54 | 3.5% | 2.37 | +92% |
| Burglary | 706 | 4.40 | 3.4% | 3.22 | +37% |
| Other crime | 608 | 3.79 | 2.9% | 2.36 | +61% |
| Possession of weapons | 325 | 2.03 | 1.6% | 1.01 | +101% |
| Robbery | 226 | 1.44 | 1.1% | 0.69 | +109% |
| Theft from the person | 185 | 1.15 | 0.9% | 0.38 | +203% |
| Bicycle theft | 138 | 0.87 | 0.7% | 0.54 | +61% |
| Anti-social behaviour (not in total) | 6,945 | 43.30 | – | 25.12 | +72% |
Four things stand out. First, violence is unusually large: more than half of Blackpool’s recorded crime, against 49 per cent across Lancashire (62,045 of 126,210). The category is broad and includes harassment, stalking, domestic incidents and assaults without injury, much of it between people who know each other, so it is not a measure of street attacks on strangers. Second, the crowd crimes are where Blackpool stands out most against the county: theft from the person is three times the Lancashire rate, and the town accounts for 28 per cent of the county’s recorded pickpocketing and snatch thefts (185 of 663), against 16 per cent of all crime. Robbery (+109 per cent) and possession of weapons (+101 per cent) are about double the county rate, but the numbers are small: 226 robberies and 325 weapons offences in a year. Third, public order (+96 per cent) and drugs (+92 per cent) follow the night-time economy and police activity: drugs offences are mostly found by officers, so they partly show where police are working. Fourth, the household crimes are the least elevated: burglary (706 offences, 3.4 per cent of the total) and vehicle crime are under 40 per cent above the county rate, the smallest gaps in the table.
Is crime in Blackpool going up or down?
Down, for the third year running. CrimeRate records 22,404 offences in the 12 months to April 2023, 21,884 in 2024, 21,605 in 2025 and 20,755 in 2026: 1,649 fewer than the 2023 figure (−7.4 per cent) and 850 fewer than last year (−3.9 per cent), while Lancashire rose slightly (+0.9 per cent). The peak in this series was 28,074 offences (178.91 per 1,000) in 2019; the latest total is 26 per cent below it.
| Year (12 months to April) | Crimes | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 17,956 | 113.71 |
| 2018 | 21,476 | 136.95 |
| 2019 | 28,074 | 178.91 |
| 2020 | 22,673 | 144.15 |
| 2021 | 20,294 | 130.24 |
| 2022 | 22,145 | 142.55 |
| 2023 | 22,404 | 143.34 |
| 2024 | 21,884 | 138.67 |
| 2025 | 21,605 | 135.59 |
| 2026 | 20,755 | 129.35 |
The 2019 spike shows up across the whole of Lancashire (159,649 offences that year against around 125,000 now), so it most likely reflects how crime was being recorded at the time rather than a one-year surge in Blackpool alone. The 2021 dip covers the lockdown year, when the resort was largely closed.
Which parts of Blackpool record the most crime?
Lancashire Constabulary splits Blackpool into 21 neighbourhoods named after the town’s wards, and police.uk publishes 12-month counts for each, including anti-social behaviour. We checked six of them. Talbot, around the town centre, records the most, followed by Claremont and Bloomfield; Norbreck, on the northern seafront, records about a tenth as much as Talbot.
| Neighbourhood (police.uk) | Incidents, Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 | Aug 2026 | Top categories in Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talbot | 4,233 | 392 | Violence 133, anti-social behaviour 72, public order 32, other theft 29 |
| Claremont | 3,439 | 306 | Violence 143, anti-social behaviour 41, criminal damage 27, public order 27 |
| Bloomfield | 3,300 | 339 | Violence 139, anti-social behaviour 61, public order 28, other theft 21 |
| Waterloo | 1,624 | 148 | Violence 54, anti-social behaviour 33, other theft 15, public order 14 |
| Brunswick | 1,475 | 109 | Violence 48, anti-social behaviour 27, other theft 8, public order 8 |
| Norbreck | 440 | 40 | Violence 20, anti-social behaviour 6, other theft 5, criminal damage 3 |
Source: police.uk neighbourhood pages, September 2025 to August 2026. These are counts for areas of different sizes, not rates, and they cover only six of the 21 neighbourhoods, so they should not be added up and compared with the town figure. Violence is the top category in every one of them. The published priorities for these teams (6 October 2026) are anti-social behaviour, drugs and violent crime, with actions that include targeting persistent street drinking, acting on community intelligence about drug dealing and Operation Grip against knife crime hotspots.
Is Blackpool busier for crime in summer?
Yes, clearly. Across the six neighbourhoods above, recorded incidents were lowest in February 2026 (935) and highest in July 2026 (1,464), 57 per cent higher. June, July and August together held 4,185 incidents, 28.8 per cent of the year. Talbot alone went from 263 in February to 422 in June, and Waterloo from 99 in April to 187 in June. The town fills up with visitors in the summer season, so more incidents are recorded; that does not mean the risk to any one person rises in the same proportion.
Is Blackpool safe at night?
Police street-level data carries no time of day, so it cannot say how much crime happens after dark. What it does show is that violence, anti-social behaviour and public order offences lead in the central neighbourhoods, and that theft from the person is three times the county rate. On a night out, stay with your group on lit, busy routes along the Promenade and the main streets, keep phones and bags out of reach in crowds, agree how you will get back to your hotel before you go out, and use licensed taxis. Check the streets around your accommodation in the postcode checker.
Is Blackpool a safe place to live?
It depends heavily on the street. The town-wide rate is driven by the resort centre: Norbreck, a residential neighbourhood on the northern seafront, recorded 440 incidents in a year against 4,233 in Talbot. Burglary is 3.4 per cent of recorded crime (706 offences), and the Fylde coast towns around Blackpool, such as Cleveleys, Thornton and Poulton-le-Fylde, record well under half the town’s rate. Census 2021 counted 141,100 residents in Blackpool, but CrimeRate uses a different, larger population base for its rate, so we do not quote a rate per resident. Compare two postcodes before you choose, and read how to check crime in your area for the limits of any single number. This page describes what was recorded, not the people who live here.
How do I check a specific street or postcode in Blackpool?
- Enter your postcode in the postcode checker to see 12 months of police-recorded crime and the trend by month.
- Add a second postcode, for example one in Bispham or Cleveleys, to compare two areas side by side.
- Zoom into the UK crime map to see what was recorded near a street.
These figures describe areas, not addresses. Police data covers reported crime only, and each crime is shown at a nearby anonymised point. Read where our crime data comes from for the limits. Rates from different websites are not directly comparable; the town and city rates on this page all come from one source.
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Blackpool crime FAQ
What is the crime rate in Blackpool?
Blackpool recorded 129.35 crimes per 1,000 people in the 12 months to April 2026 (20,755 offences), against 71.87 for Lancashire and around 68 for England (CrimeRate). Anti-social behaviour, 6,945 reports, is not included.
Is Blackpool safe for tourists?
Most visits pass without incident, but the recorded rate is high because a lot of visitor and night-time activity is concentrated in a small town. Violence and public order offences lead the figures, and theft from the person is three times the Lancashire rate, so watch your belongings in crowds and plan your route back at night.
Is Blackpool safer than Liverpool?
Not on the per-head figures. Blackpool’s 129.35 per 1,000 is about 21 per cent above Liverpool’s 106.48, although Liverpool records about three times as many crimes in total.
Is crime in Blackpool going down?
Yes. Recorded crime fell from 21,605 to 20,755 offences between the 12 months to April 2025 and the 12 months to April 2026, down 3.9 per cent, the third fall in a row since 22,404 in 2023.
Where does this data come from?
Police-recorded crime published on data.police.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0, analysed by CrimeRate for counts and rates, and police.uk neighbourhood pages for local counts. See where our crime data comes from.
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