Data: police.uk neighbourhood pages, 12 months to August 2026 (Sutton Trinity to July 2026); CrimeRate, 12 months to April 2026; data.police.uk, July 2026 · Updated 12 October 2026
The safest areas in Birmingham, measured by recorded crime over the 12 months to August 2026, are Sutton Four Oaks (1,069 incidents on police.uk), Sutton New Hall (1,683) and the Jewellery Quarter (1,717), against 14,005 in the City Centre. Sutton Coldfield as a whole records 62.62 crimes per 1,000 on CrimeRate, about 40 per cent below Birmingham’s 105.03.
Overview: for the city-wide crime rate, the trend and whether Birmingham is safe overall, see is Birmingham safe? What the police data says. This page focuses on the safest and least safe neighbourhoods.
Key figures
- Sutton Four Oaks: 1,069 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026, the lowest of the Birmingham neighbourhoods we checked and about one-thirteenth of the City Centre’s 14,005 (police.uk, including anti-social behaviour).
- Sutton Coldfield: 6,353 crimes in the 12 months to April 2026, 62.62 per 1,000, down 2.8 per cent from 6,539 (CrimeRate, excluding anti-social behaviour).
- Against the region: about 30 per cent below the West Midlands (89.93) and slightly below England (about 68).
- Seasonal swing: Sutton Four Oaks, New Hall and Vesey together went from 290 incidents in January 2026 to 456 in July 2026 (+57 per cent).
- Birmingham overall: 130,473 crimes, 105.03 per 1,000 (CrimeRate, 12 months to April 2026).
West Midlands Police names Solihull, Stourbridge and Sutton Coldfield as the force area’s safest locations, and Birmingham, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton as its highest-crime, in CrimeRate’s independent analysis — the same figures we already cited in our general Birmingham post. That analysis is a force-wide, long-run picture. Here we go and check it against something much narrower: a real, small, one-month sample from data.police.uk for a specific point in each of those six places, the same method we use everywhere else on this site.
What one month actually showed
Each figure below is every recorded crime within a small area (roughly 200–300 metres across, kept deliberately small so the police API’s 500-record cap never truncates the result) around one representative postcode in each place, for July 2026, counted by hand from the raw data.
Sutton Coldfield
Solihull
Stourbridge
West Bromwich
Wolverhampton (centre)
Birmingham centre (Ladywood)
Where the reputation and the sample agree — and where they don’t
Sutton Coldfield and Solihull, both named among the safest, landed on an identical count in our sample: 26. Birmingham city centre, named the highest-crime location, came out clearly highest at 52 — twice either of those. So far, the reputation holds up.
West Bromwich is the interesting one. CrimeRate names it alongside Birmingham and Wolverhampton as one of the force’s three highest-crime locations, but our sample for a central West Bromwich postcode came out at 21 — the same as Stourbridge, one of the three named safest. That does not mean West Bromwich is secretly as quiet as Stourbridge: a single postcode, one month, one small box is nowhere near enough to overturn a long-run, force-wide analysis, and a different street or a different month in West Bromwich could easily look very different. What it does show is exactly why we keep making this point across every post in this series: a place’s reputation is built from a much bigger, longer-run dataset than any one sample here can be, and the two are answering different questions. Wolverhampton, the other named highest-crime location, did come out on top of this group after Birmingham itself (30), which is consistent with its reputation.
See it for yourself
These comparisons open live with both postcodes already loaded, using twelve months of data rather than the single month above:
- Sutton Coldfield vs Solihull — the two named-safest areas, head to head over a full year.
- West Bromwich vs Stourbridge — the pair that tied in our one-month sample.
- Wolverhampton vs Birmingham centre — the two named-highest areas against each other.
What are the safest areas in Birmingham over a full year?
Over the 12 months to August 2026, police.uk records the fewest incidents in Sutton Four Oaks (1,069), Sutton New Hall (1,683), the Jewellery Quarter (1,717) and Sutton Vesey (1,723). All four average fewer than 150 a month, against about 1,167 a month in Birmingham City Centre and about 403 in Lozells and East Handsworth.
The one-month sample above uses small boxes around single postcodes. This table uses a whole year for whole policing neighbourhoods: we took nine of the ten neighbourhoods with the lowest counts in July 2026 in our ranking of all 44 Birmingham neighbourhoods (Bournville was not re-checked) and added up the monthly totals published on each police.uk neighbourhood page.
| Neighbourhood | 12-month total | Monthly average | Quietest month | Busiest month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sutton Four Oaks | 1,069 | 89 | 56 (Jan 2026) | 136 (Jun 2026) |
| Sutton New Hall | 1,683 | 140 | 110 (Mar 2026) | 192 (Nov 2025) |
| Jewellery Quarter | 1,717 | 143 | 118 (Dec 2025) | 163 (Mar 2026) |
| Sutton Vesey | 1,723 | 144 | 88 (Jan 2026) | 199 (Jul 2026) |
| Nechells | 1,782 | 149 | 130 (Oct 2025, Feb and Mar 2026) | 175 (Sep 2025) |
| Hall Green | 2,110 | 176 | 146 (Oct 2025) | 215 (Jul 2026) |
| Quinton | 2,194 | 183 | 135 (Apr 2026) | 210 (Jul 2026) |
| Brandwood | 2,424 | 202 | 163 (Jan 2026) | 232 (Jun 2026) |
| Sutton Trinity* | 2,661 | 222 | 152 (Feb 2026) | 284 (May 2026) |
| For comparison: Lozells and East Handsworth | 4,833 | 403 | 306 (Feb 2026) | 528 (Jul 2026) |
| For comparison: City Centre | 14,005 | 1,167 | 1,028 (Jan 2026) | 1,300 (Jul 2026) |
Sep 2025 to Aug 2026, including anti-social behaviour; *Sutton Trinity Aug 2025 to Jul 2026, the latest 12 months on its page. These are counts, not rates: police.uk does not publish a population for each neighbourhood, and the areas differ in size.
The full year reorders the bottom of the table. In July 2026 alone the Jewellery Quarter (136) looked clearly quieter than Sutton New Hall (150) and Sutton Vesey (188); over twelve months the three sit within 40 incidents of each other. Nechells, fourth-lowest in July, is fifth over the year. Only Sutton Four Oaks stands apart, with about 36 per cent fewer incidents than the next-lowest neighbourhood.
Is Sutton Coldfield the safest part of Birmingham?
Sutton Coldfield is the clearest low-crime part of Birmingham in the data. CrimeRate records 6,353 crimes there in the 12 months to April 2026, a rate of 62.62 per 1,000, about 40 per cent below Birmingham’s 105.03 and about 30 per cent below the West Midlands (89.93). Three of the four quietest neighbourhoods above are in Sutton.
The mix is different as well as smaller. Violence and sexual offences are 35.8 per cent of Sutton Coldfield’s crime (2,274 offences) against 45.0 per cent for Birmingham as a whole, but shoplifting is 17.6 per cent (1,121) against 8.7 per cent, vehicle crime 13.0 per cent (823) against 8.7 per cent, and burglary 6.5 per cent (414) against 4.7 per cent. In other words, a quieter area here is one where crime is more often against shops, cars and homes, and less often against people. The count fell 2.8 per cent on the previous year (6,539), a steeper fall than Birmingham’s 0.8 per cent. Anti-social behaviour (415 incidents) is not in CrimeRate’s total, and CrimeRate uses its own population base, so we do not quote a rate per resident.
Sutton Trinity, which covers the town centre, is the busiest of the four Sutton neighbourhoods (2,661 incidents), and its listed police priorities are shop theft and anti-social behaviour in the town centre and on the Falcon Lodge estate.
Do Birmingham’s safest areas stay quiet all year?
Not quite. Sutton Four Oaks, New Hall and Vesey together recorded 290 incidents in January 2026 and 456 in July 2026, a rise of 57 per cent. Sutton Vesey went from 741 incidents between September and February to 982 between March and August, up 33 per cent. Sutton New Hall and Quinton were the exceptions, flat or slightly down.
The local police priorities explain part of the summer rise. Sutton Four Oaks lists anti-social behaviour in Sutton Park; Sutton Vesey lists retail crime and anti-social behaviour around Princess Alice Park and youths on motorbikes on The Greenway, and shoplifting (55) was its largest category in August 2026. Hall Green lists speeding on Stratford Road and nitrous oxide use, and the Jewellery Quarter lists vehicle crime and parcel thefts from apartment buildings. A low annual total does not mean every street is quiet every month.
How do I check a Birmingham street on the crime map?
- Enter the postcode in our address checker to see twelve months of recorded crime within about a mile, by category.
- Compare two postcodes side by side, as in the links above, to see whether a street is busier than the one you are comparing it with.
- Open the UK crime map to see where incidents cluster street by street, such as around a station, a retail park or a high street.
- Look up the neighbourhood on police.uk to read its current priorities and contact the local team.
- Compare the same months: as the table shows, summer and winter totals can differ by half again.
Safety App UK shows this police data on a live map, plans safer walking routes and sends SOS to your trusted circle. It is not a police service: in an emergency call 999, and 101 for anything else.
What doesn’t the Birmingham crime map show?
The latest month on the map is August 2026, so it runs one to two months behind. Each incident is moved to a nearby anonymous map point rather than the exact address. For August 2026 British Transport Police supplied no crime data, so incidents at New Street and other stations are missing from that month. Crime that was never reported is absent everywhere. police.uk neighbourhood totals include anti-social behaviour, while CrimeRate’s totals do not. More detail is in where our crime data comes from.
The limits of this data
This is recorded crime — what was reported and logged, not everything that happened — from one month, in small areas chosen to stay well under the police API’s reporting cap. It is not a verdict on any of these six places or the people who live there. For the short answer on the city as a whole, see is Birmingham safe? For the full force-wide picture, see our Birmingham post, the police force crime rate ranking, or our breakdown of specifically violent crime across these same six areas. For the opposite question answered across all 44 Birmingham policing neighbourhoods, see most dangerous areas in Birmingham. And as always: none of this replaces calling 999 in an emergency.
Safest areas in Birmingham FAQ
What is the safest area in Birmingham?
On recorded crime, Sutton Four Oaks: 1,069 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026 on police.uk, the lowest of the neighbourhoods we checked, and also the lowest of all 44 neighbourhoods in our July 2026 count (115). Sutton New Hall (1,683) and the Jewellery Quarter (1,717) come next.
Is Sutton Coldfield safe?
Sutton Coldfield recorded 62.62 crimes per 1,000 in the 12 months to April 2026 on CrimeRate, about 40 per cent below Birmingham (105.03) and slightly below England (about 68). Its most common offences are violence, shoplifting and vehicle crime, and the town centre (Sutton Trinity) is its busiest neighbourhood.
Is the Jewellery Quarter safe?
The Jewellery Quarter recorded 1,717 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026, an average of 143 a month and the third-lowest total in our table. Violence and sexual offences (62) were its largest category in August 2026; local police priorities are vehicle crime and parcel thefts from apartment buildings.
What is the crime rate in Birmingham?
105.03 crimes per 1,000 people in the 12 months to April 2026 (130,473 crimes, excluding anti-social behaviour), according to CrimeRate, against 89.93 for the West Midlands. The full breakdown is in worst areas in Birmingham and crime rate.
How up to date is this?
police.uk and data.police.uk update monthly; the latest month is August 2026. CrimeRate’s figures cover the 12 months to April 2026. We last checked every figure on this page on 12 October 2026.
Get the app — free for 7 days Check a Birmingham postcode
Crime data: police.uk neighbourhood pages (West Midlands Police), 12 months to August 2026, and data.police.uk street-level crime, July 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0. Crime rates: CrimeRate, 12 months to April 2026.