Yes, Kennington is a safe village, and its crime rate is well under the district's. The level is about two-thirds of the local average. Unemployment barely registers. Hardly anyone lives in an overcrowded home. Where the police come up short is solving crimes once they are reported.
Kennington recorded 299 crimes in the year to May 2026, which Thames Valley Police publishes as about 40 crimes for every 1,000 residents. That puts the village roughly 31% below the Vale of White Horse average for the same twelve months. The published rate uses its own population base for the small statistical areas involved, so it is the number to quote.
Across the Vale of White Horse as a whole, the rate in the same year was about 58 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Kennington's 40. The district's average is being made somewhere else, and it isn't on this strip between the river and the dual carriageway.
The village has about 2,000 people per square kilometre on average, unemployment of about 2% and about 1% of households overcrowded. That describes settled streets of owner-occupied houses where most adults are working or retired.
The breakdown of what gets reported comes with a warning about small numbers. With only 299 crimes in a year, a few incidents can move any category by several points. Violence and sexual offences made up about 41% of Kennington's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category is the biggest almost everywhere, and it covers a wide legal range that includes common assault where nobody was injured. Anti-social behaviour was about 12% here against 16% nationally, and other theft about 10% against 7%. Criminal damage and arson came to about 8% against 7%, public order to about 7%, level with the national share, and vehicle crime to about 5%, also level. Most of the mix tracks the national pattern, and the bits that don't rest on a few dozen incidents. If the house you're viewing is on a road you don't know, check the police's street-level crime map for that road, because at these totals one bad patch is easy to spot.
Thames Valley Police charged a suspect in about 9% of cases over the year to May 2026, against about 12% nationally. That puts it 37th of 42 forces in England and Wales. About 37% of the force's cases were closed with no suspect identified. These are force-wide numbers, covering everywhere from city centres to villages, and they show what happens after a crime. They don't measure how much crime there is. Kennington is safe because it has fewer crimes. The force's record on catching people is no help to that reputation.
Safety is one of Kennington's real strengths. Crime is low by the district's standards and the streets give little cause for worry.