Maresfield is safe, and dull about it. Crime runs about a fifth below the rest of the district. Hardly anyone is out of work. Hardly anyone lives in an overcrowded home. The most exciting thing about Maresfield's crime figures is how unexciting they are.
The published crime rate for the Maresfield area was about 44 per 1,000 residents in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 20% below the Wealden average. That covers 335 recorded crimes over the twelve months, across Maresfield and the surrounding villages. The count isn't zero. It is, though, a low figure in a district that is already quiet by national standards.
Put the two rates side by side. The Maresfield area sits at about 44 crimes per 1,000 residents, and Wealden as a whole at about 55. Wealden already counts as a quiet district, so being a fifth below it means being below a low figure. Anyone who has seen an estate agent describe a village as "safe" without a single number will find this more convincing.
The area around it helps explain the figures without accounting for all of them. Population density averages about 445 people per square kilometre, unemployment is about 2% and overcrowding is about 1%. That's large houses, spread out, owned by people in work or retired from it. Low crime is common in places like that, though no single one of those figures explains it on its own.
The mix of crimes needs a warning attached. Over the same twelve months, violence and sexual offences made up about 29% of the area's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally, so the category that makes any place sound alarming actually runs below the national share here. Anti-social behaviour made up about 24%, against 16% nationally. Other theft came in at about 11% against 7%, public order at 9% against 7%, vehicle crime at 7% against 5%, and criminal damage and arson at 7%, level with the national share. The totals are small, so a handful of incidents can move any of those shares by several points. Read the mix as last year's figures, not as a lasting feature of the village. A few rowdy nights can shift the anti-social behaviour share, and that's too thin a basis for deciding anything about a house.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer comes from the police force, not the village. Sussex Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, placing it 35th of 42 forces over the year from June 2025 to May 2026. About 48% of cases were closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures, and they tell you about Sussex Police's record rather than about Maresfield's streets. They don't make the village less safe. They mean that if something is taken from your shed, you probably won't get it back.
Safety is one of Maresfield's real strengths. The crime rate is low, the area around it is settled, and the numbers have nothing alarming to report.