Bourne End is safe, and comfortably safer than the county around it. Its crime rate is well over a third below Buckinghamshire's. Anti-social behaviour is a smaller slice of local crime than it is across England. Unemployment barely registers. Whatever is pushing up the county's numbers is happening a few miles from the Wye.
In the year from June 2025 to May 2026, Bourne End recorded a published crime rate of about 41 crimes per 1,000 residents, about 37% below the Buckinghamshire average. That came from 444 recorded crimes over the twelve months, across a village of a few thousand homes spread along the river.
Set side by side, the gap is plain. Bourne End's rate is about 41 per 1,000, and Buckinghamshire's as a whole is about 65 per 1,000 over the same year. The county includes its larger towns, and it is the towns, by the look of these two numbers, that carry the weight.
The neighbourhood behind those numbers is the comfortable sort. Population density averages about 2,936 people per square kilometre across the area's neighbourhoods, about 2% of working-age residents were unemployed at the 2021 Census, and about 1% of households were overcrowded. These describe the place and do not explain its crime; low-pressure neighbourhoods have bad years too.
The mix needs a health warning before it is read. With 444 crimes in total, a few incidents in one category can move its share by several points, so this is one year's snapshot and no fixed trait of the village. Violence and sexual offences made up about 39% of recorded crime against about 35% nationally, close to the norm for a category that includes common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour was about 10% against about 16% nationally, and public order about 9% against about 7%. Criminal damage and arson came to about 8% against 7%, drugs about 7% against 4%, and other theft about 7%, level with the national share. A village with a members' bar at its Community Centre turns out to generate less anti-social behaviour than England does.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer comes from the force. Thames Valley Police charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which places it 37th of 42 forces in England and Wales over the year to May 2026. About 37% of its cases are closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures across the whole Thames Valley, so they say nothing about Bourne End's own streets. The odds of being a victim here are low, and so, across the force, are the odds of someone being charged for it.
Before buying, look at the police street-level crime map around the specific house, since a village rate spreads one number over every road.
Safety is one of Bourne End's clear strengths, with crime well under the county rate and nothing in the local picture to argue with that. Buyers who need a reason to hesitate will have to find it somewhere other than the police figures.