Lancashire's most dangerous place revealed by new study of latest police crime statistics

With the North West as a whole ranking as the UK’s second-most dangerous region when measured on a crime per 1,000 residents basis (with 101.9 crimes/1,000 residents), the area experienced a whopping 766,158 criminal offences in the past 12 months alone according to new data by Churchill support services.

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The data reveals soaring rates of violent crime (308,799 incidents), a key problem across the region, theft (198,577 incidents), and public order offences (92,148 incidents). Rates of drug crime (31,949 incidents, up by 23%), shoplifting (42,372 incidents, up by 13%), and weapon possession (9,084 incidents, up by 10%) are also also on the rise.

Excluding cities such as Liverpool and Manchester to focus solely on Lancashire, Accrington has been revealed as the county’s most dangerous place, with 180.1 crimes per 1,000 people, with high rates of violent crime (2,017 offences), antisocial behaviour (1,754 offences), and criminal damage (479 offences). 

It was followed by Blackpool and Blackburn in 6th and 7th respectively, who both had rates of 139.2 crimes per 1,000 people. Fleetwood came in 8th place with a rate of 138/1,000 people, Burnley came 11th with 129.9, and Darwen came 12th with 129.5.

Just outside the top 15 were Morecambe (125.2) in 16th, Preston in 17th (124.5), Leyland in 21st (115.4), and Bamber Bridge in 25th (111.2).

Despite such figures making for grim reading, crime in the North West as a whole has actually fallen by 4% compared to figures in 2022 (766,158 total offences, down from 802,055 offences).

Digging deeper, there were noticeable reductions across homicide (down by 17%, from 88 to 73), burglary (down by 16%, from 42,916 incidents to 36,105), and public order offences (down by 14%, from 107,555 incidents to 92,148).

However, those are offset by increases across several in multiple different offence types. Weapon possession (up to 9,084 offences, from 8,286) and shoplifting (up to 42,372 offences, from 37,655) saw increases of more than 10%, with theft from the person rising by 7% (10,678 offences, up from 9,986).

The worst increase was in drug offences, however, which went from 26,023 offences in 2022 to a staggering 31,949 offences for 2023 – a rise of more than 23%. That includes both possession and selling illegal drugs.