Yes, and comfortably so. Crime runs far below the Canterbury district average. Unemployment is close to nil. Hardly anyone lives in an overcrowded home. Herne is the part of the district where the police mostly drive through on the way somewhere else.
Police records logged 432 crimes in Herne in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, a published rate of about 45 per 1,000 residents. That sits about 60% below the average for the Canterbury local authority area. For a place of this size, 432 crimes in a year is the kind of total that generates more conversation on a village noticeboard than work for a detective.
The Canterbury district as a whole runs at about 113 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Herne's 45. Both figures come from the same twelve months of police records, so the comparison is like for like. Buyers who glance at the district figure and cross Herne off the list have filed a quiet village under the wrong heading.
The neighbourhood texture fits the numbers. Herne averages about 3,190 residents per square kilometre across its statistical areas, which is settled suburb density rather than town centre. Unemployment at the 2021 Census was about 2%, and about 2% of households were overcrowded. None of that causes low crime on its own, but it describes a place where most people own the house, have the job and have no reason to be out at three in the morning.
By category, violence and sexual offences made up about 41% of Herne's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That label is a broad legal grouping that includes common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour accounted for about 18%, against 16% nationally. Other theft and criminal damage and arson each made up about 9%, against about 7% nationally for both. Shoplifting was about 6%, below the 8% national share, and drugs about 4%, level with the country. With only 432 crimes in total, a handful of incidents moves any of these shares by several points, so the mix is a snapshot of one year rather than a settled fact about Herne. Anyone reading a village's crime categories as a personality profile is doing astrology with a spreadsheet.
On what happens after a report, Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which placed the force sixth of 42 in England and Wales over the year from June 2025 to May 2026. That is a force-wide figure, covering the whole county rather than Herne itself. About 36% of cases across the force were closed with no suspect identified, which is the honest answer to whether they will catch whoever took the bike from the shed. None of this measures how safe Herne is. It measures what the county's police do once something has already happened.
Safety is among Herne's real strengths, and the gap to the district average is wide enough to survive any single bad year. The main risk for a buyer here is overpaying for a burglar alarm.