Buxted is safe, in the dull way most people moving to a village are hoping for. Crime runs well below the rest of Wealden, which is not a rough district to begin with. Almost nobody is out of work. Almost nobody is crammed in. The main local conflict is about hedges, and it rarely gets reported.
In the year from June 2025 to May 2026, the Buxted area recorded 243 crimes, a published rate of about 39 per 1,000 people. That puts it roughly 29% below the Wealden average. Those are published police figures for the area's statistical boundaries, and the rate uses its own population base, so it's the number to quote rather than one to rework on the back of an envelope.
Side by side, the gap is plain. Buxted runs at about 39 crimes per 1,000 people, and Wealden as a whole at about 55. Wealden is a largely rural district of market towns and villages, so beating its average is not the same as beating a city's. It's beating a district that already sleeps well.
The neighbourhood texture fits the numbers. Average population density across the area's postcodes is about 1,023 people per square kilometre, unemployment sits at about 1% and overcrowding at about 1%. These describe the kind of place Buxted is, owner-occupied and settled, rather than explain its crime figures. They do tell you the streets aren't under much strain.
The crime mix needs a health warning before any numbers. With 243 crimes in a year, a handful of incidents moves a category's share by several points, so none of this is a fixed trait of the village. Violence and sexual offences make up about 32% of recorded crime here, against about 35% nationally. That is the largest category almost everywhere, and it covers a wide legal range, including common assault without injury, so Buxted sits close to normal rather than alarming. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 29%, against about 16% nationally, which is the one share that stands out. Public order is about 10% against about 7%, other theft about 9% against about 7%, and criminal damage and arson about 5% against about 7%. In a low-crime area, the small stuff takes up a bigger slice of a small pie. Anyone writing "anti-social behaviour hotspot" off that is reading a percentage and ignoring the total it's a percentage of.
After a crime is reported, the numbers are force-wide, not Buxted's own. Sussex Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, over the year from June 2025 to May 2026, placing it 35th of 42 forces. About 48% of cases close with no suspect identified. That answers a different question from how safe the area is: it tells you the odds of anyone being caught, not the odds of anything happening. In Buxted the second question matters less, because the first one rarely comes up.
Safety is one of Buxted's real strengths. If crime is the reason you're hesitating over this village, you're worrying about the wrong thing.