Lyminge is safe enough to make the crime map look broken. Crime runs at about a quarter of the district rate. Roughly a hundred offences get recorded in a whole year. Barely anyone is out of work and almost nobody is crammed in. Anyone hunting for a reason not to buy here will need to look at something other than crime.
Police records for the year to May 2026 put Lyminge at about 22 crimes per 1,000 people, roughly 74% below the Folkestone and Hythe average. That's 103 recorded crimes over those twelve months, across the village and its surrounding lanes. Both are the published figures, and the rate uses its own statistical population base rather than a head count of the village.
For comparison, the Folkestone and Hythe district as a whole runs at about 85 crimes per 1,000 people. So 22 against 85, in the same district, under the same police force, over the same year. The district figure includes the busy town centres, and Lyminge's figure includes a cricket club and a lot of hedges.
The neighbourhood behind those numbers is a settled one. The area averages about 1,390 people per square kilometre across its statistical areas. Unemployment is about 2% and overcrowding is about 1%. None of that causes a low crime rate on its own. It does describe a place where most people own their home, have work or have retired from it, and have room to live.
The mix needs handling with care, because with only 103 crimes a handful of incidents can move any share by several points. Violence and sexual offences made up about 43% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That's the biggest category almost everywhere, and it covers a wide legal range that includes common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour was about 15%, close to the national 16%. Other theft was about 12% against 7% nationally, and burglary about 7% against 4%. Criminal damage and arson came in around 7%, level with the national share, and public order around 6% against 7%. The theft and burglary shares sit above the national pattern, but on a base this small that's a reason to lock the shed rather than a settled feature of the place. Anyone reading "burglary above the national share" as a warning has confused a percentage with a problem.
What happens after a report is a separate question from how often crime happens. Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which ranks it 6th of 42 forces. That's a force-wide figure, not Lyminge's own. The less comfortable number is that about 36% of cases across the force are closed with no suspect identified. That's the honest answer to "will they catch whoever did it", and it applies in the quietest village as much as anywhere else.
Safety is one of Lyminge's real strengths. The crime rate is low by any fair comparison, and the main risk is reading too much into percentages built on very few incidents.