Sevenoaks crime rate: 52.5 per 1,000, 37% below average

Every month, Kent Police publishes a record of where crime happened across the district, and anyone can read it. The figures sit on police.uk, the official open-data site, and they cover your street as well as the High Street. Most people never look. This is a plain read of the numbers for central Sevenoaks: what the main categories are, which way the trend is pointing, and how you can check your own road in about two minutes.

This page uses two official sources, and it is worth knowing which is which. The district rate immediately below comes from the Home Office’s own police recorded crime tables, which count every offence Kent Police logged in the Sevenoaks district over a full year. Everything after that is counted from the police.uk street-level records for the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s neighbourhood policing area, the beat covering the town centre, the station and St John’s, because that is a named, mapped unit you can select on police.uk yourself and get the same answer. Street-level data runs about two months behind while forces’ records are quality-checked and anonymised; the newest month published is June 2026, confirmed against the police.uk data dates feed.

Is Sevenoaks safe? The district rate, and how it compares

Most “how safe is Sevenoaks” pages quote a crime rate without saying where it came from. Here is ours, with the working shown. Kent Police recorded 6,462 offences across the Sevenoaks district in the year to March 2026. Against an ONS mid-2025 population of 123,183, that is 52.5 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents. The same sum for England and Wales gives 83.0 per 1,000, so Sevenoaks runs about 37% below the national rate.

Sevenoaks is also the lowest of the Kent districts whose figures can be used at all, and by a clear margin:

Offences: Home Office police recorded crime, Community Safety Partnership open data tables, updated 23 July 2026. Population: ONS mid-2025 estimates. Rates calculated by Sevenoaks Online.

Five Kent areas are missing from that table, and that is the Home Office’s doing

You will notice Maidstone, Medway, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells, and Dartford and Gravesham are not there. They are not omitted to flatter Sevenoaks. The Home Office’s own note on the file says why:

Kent: Due to ongoing IT issues, crime data for Maidstone, Medway, Tonbridge and Malling, Dartford and Gravesham, and Tunbridge Wells are recorded under an unassigned CSP group from 2024 onwards.

The effect is not small. Medway’s recorded total falls from 22,706 in the year to March 2024 to 6,750, then to 107. Maidstone goes from 11,467 to 33. Across Kent, 68,563 offences, 44% of everything the force recorded in the year to March 2026, now sit in an unassigned pile belonging to no district at all, against 4.7% four years earlier. Any site quoting a single tidy “crime rate” for a Kent district right now is either using one of the five broken returns or has not checked. Sevenoaks is not on that list, and its own series has no cliff in it, which is why we are willing to publish the number above.

The district trend, six years

Recorded crime in the district has fallen every year since 2022/23, and the year to March 2026 is 18.9% below that peak. The latest year alone is down 736 offences, or 10.2%, while England and Wales fell 1.6% over the same twelve months. That is a real divergence, though a single year of it is not yet a trend, and the caution below applies.

Three things this rate does not tell you. It counts recorded crime, not convictions. It excludes fraud, which Action Fraud records nationally rather than the local force, so the true figure for offences against Sevenoaks residents is higher. And an offence with no exact location cannot be allocated to a district at all, so every district total here, including ours, is a floor rather than a full count. A district rate is a way of placing Sevenoaks against somewhere else. It says nothing about your own road, and the rest of this page is about that.

The headline: 53 recorded crimes a month

Across the six months from January to June 2026, police recorded 318 crimes in the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s area, an average of 53 a month. The most recent month, June 2026, came in at 47, below that average.

One month on its own tells you very little at these numbers, so start with the six-month picture. Here is every category recorded between January and June 2026, largest first:

Source: police.uk open data, Sevenoaks Town and St John’s area, January to June 2026.

The single most useful thing in that table is what sits at the top. Shoplifting is the most-recorded crime in central Sevenoaks, more than a quarter of everything logged, and it was the largest category in four of the six months. Add violence and sexual offences and anti-social behaviour and those three headings account for roughly three in every five records. That is the pattern of a small town with a busy retail centre, and it matters when you read the rest of the numbers.

A word on “violence and sexual offences”

This is the second-largest category, and it is the most misread. The police.uk system folds dozens of detailed offence codes into 14 broad headings, so “violence and sexual offences” covers everything from a pushing incident or a public threat through to far more serious harm. A high count in this category does not mean the town is full of serious violent crime. It means a wide group of offences all land under one label. The police.uk methodology explains how those categories are built.

The trend: six months at a glance

The trend is where the signal is. Here is the same area, month by month:

Source: police.uk open data, Sevenoaks Town and St John’s area.

The line is roughly flat with normal wobble. The quietest month was February, the busiest May, and June came back down to 47. There is no surge and no collapse here, just the ordinary month-to-month noise you get when the underlying numbers are this small. A swing of ten or fifteen records is a handful of incidents, not a trend, and that is the honest read.

June 2026 in detail

For the newest month the breakdown was tighter at the top: shoplifting and violence and sexual offences tied on 10 records each, followed by anti-social behaviour and vehicle crime on 5, other theft on 4, and burglary, criminal damage and arson, and “other crime” on 3 apiece. Drugs, public order, robbery and theft from the person had one each.

Vehicle crime is the one worth a second look: 5 records in June against 2 in May. On these numbers that is three extra incidents rather than a wave, but it is the category where ordinary precautions cost you nothing.

Where the crime is, and where it is not

The town centre carries the district’s recorded crime out of proportion to its size. Set the four Sevenoaks town neighbourhoods side by side over the same six months:

Source: police.uk open data, each neighbourhood’s own published boundary, January to June 2026.

The town-centre beat accounts for 49% of everything recorded across the four, and Kippington and Eastern run at roughly a quarter of its monthly rate. Within the town centre the concentration is tighter still. In June the locations with the most records were “on or near” a parking area (13), the High Street (4), and then the hospital, Buckhurst Avenue and a supermarket on 3 each. Shops, car parks and the streets between them, in other words, not residential roads.

What it means for you

A few practical points fall out of the numbers.

• Retail crime drives the town-centre total. Shoplifting alone is more than a quarter of the six-month record, and it clusters around the shops and car parks. If you live on a quieter street, the town-centre total is not your street’s experience.
• Anti-social behaviour is a report, not always a crime. This category captures what people call in, from rowdiness to nuisance. A higher count often reflects more people reporting, which means the system is being used, not necessarily that things are worse. Sustained reports about one address can end in enforcement rather than a charge: magistrates ordered a Swanley home closed for three months in August, on Kent Police’s application, without anyone being charged.
• Property crime against homes is a small share. Burglary was 10 records across six months and vehicle crime 17, in an area logging 53 crimes a month. Low numbers, though both are worth ordinary precautions.
• Outcomes lag the report. Of June’s 47 records, 17 were still “under investigation” and 14 had closed as “investigation complete, no suspect identified”. Nine were logged as unable to prosecute a suspect, two were awaiting a court outcome and five had no outcome recorded yet. A recent month always shows a high share still open, and that does not mean nothing was done.

We also publish each fresh month as a news story, counted over a one-mile radius from the town centre rather than the policing beat, so its totals run slightly higher than this page: see the latest Sevenoaks crime figures for that breakdown by category and street.

How to read your own street on police.uk

The best thing about this data is that you can check your own road, not just the town total. Here is how.

1. Go to police.uk and choose “Find your neighbourhood” or the crime map.
2. Type your postcode or street name. The Sevenoaks town centre falls in the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s neighbourhood policing area, confirmed against the police.uk neighbourhood locator.
3. Pick a month from the date selector, then read the coloured pins on the map. Each pin is a crime, grouped by type, and you can click through to the category and the recorded outcome.

One thing to understand before you panic at a pin outside your house. The locations are approximate, not exact. As the police.uk guidance puts it, the published point “always represents the approximate location of a crime, not the exact place that it happened.” Each crime is snapped to the nearest of a fixed list of map points, and every point covers a catchment of at least eight addresses, so no single home can be identified. That is why so many entries read as “on or near” a road, a parking area, a supermarket, or a hospital rather than a house number. The snap point near you may be a few doors along, or on the next street.

Frequently asked questions

Is Sevenoaks safe?

On the only comparable national measure, yes, relative to most places. Kent Police recorded 52.5 offences per 1,000 Sevenoaks residents in the year to March 2026, against 83.0 per 1,000 across England and Wales, and Sevenoaks came in lowest of the seven Kent districts whose returns the Home Office has not flagged as broken. That is a comparison, not a promise: the town centre logs about 53 crimes a month, mostly shoplifting and offences around the shops and car parks, and the surrounding residential beats run at a quarter to a half of that.

What is the Sevenoaks crime rate?

52.5 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents in the year to March 2026: 6,462 offences against an ONS mid-2025 population of 123,183. It excludes fraud, which is recorded nationally by Action Fraud, and offences that could not be given an exact location. Be wary of Kent district rates published elsewhere: five of the twelve Community Safety Partnership areas in the Kent force area have been reporting into an unassigned group since 2024.

What is the latest Sevenoaks crime data available?

June 2026, confirmed on the police.uk data feed. Police release a new month roughly every four weeks, always running about two months behind while each force’s records are quality-checked and anonymised. For the newest monthly breakdown by category and street, see our latest Sevenoaks crime report.

What is the most common crime in Sevenoaks?

Shoplifting. It accounted for 85 of the 318 crimes recorded in the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s area between January and June 2026, more than a quarter of the total and the largest category in four of those six months, per police.uk open data.

How much crime is there in Sevenoaks?

An average of 53 recorded crimes a month in the town-centre policing area over the six months to June 2026, ranging from 36 in February to 63 in May. The surrounding residential neighbourhoods run far lower, from 12.5 to 29.3 a month.

Is the Sevenoaks crime rate going up or down?

Down across the district, flat in the town centre. Home Office figures for the whole Sevenoaks district have fallen every year since 2022/23, from 7,970 offences to 6,462 in the year to March 2026, a drop of 18.9%. Zoom in to the town-centre beat and the six months to June 2026 moved between 36 and 63 a month with no clear run either way, which is what you would expect from numbers that small.

How do I check crime on my own street in Sevenoaks?

Enter your postcode on the police.uk crime map, pick a month, and read the pins. Remember the points are approximate and grouped to protect privacy, so “on or near” a road is as precise as the public data gets.

Why does “violence and sexual offences” look so high?

It is one broad category covering many different offence types, from minor public-order incidents to serious harm, grouped under a single label. A large count reflects the breadth of the category, not a town full of serious violent crime. See the police.uk methodology.

Sources

• police.uk open crime data, street-level records counted inside the published boundaries of the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s, Sevenoaks Northern, Sevenoaks Kippington and Sevenoaks Eastern neighbourhoods, January to June 2026.
• police.uk data availability feed, used to confirm June 2026 is the latest published month.
• police.uk neighbourhood locator, confirming the Sevenoaks Town and St John’s policing area.
• police.uk about and methodology, on update timing, category grouping, and location anonymisation.
• Home Office police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables, Community Safety Partnership tables covering the years to March 2021 to March 2026, updated 23 July 2026, for the Sevenoaks district and Kent comparison totals and for the force note on unassigned recording.
• ONS mid-2025 population estimates, via Nomis, used as the denominator for every rate per 1,000 on this page.

The street-level figures on this page were counted from police.uk on 31 August 2026, using each neighbourhood’s own published boundary, and the district and Kent totals from the Home Office open data tables on the same day. Crime data is provisional and may be revised. We do not name individuals, and the locations on police.uk are approximate by design. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Image: “Kent Police Peugeot 308 (GN73 BVO) - The Paddock, Chatham Waterfront, Medway” by Sunolafjagtenben-hur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kent_Police_Peugeot_308_(GN73_BVO)_-_The_Paddock,_Chatham_Waterfront,_Medway.jpg).