Yes, comfortably. Recorded crime runs about a third below the surrounding district. Three hundred and seventeen offences in a year, across a town of just under six thousand people. Nothing in the numbers picks a fight with the reputation. Safety is the part of Northam that needs the least explaining.
The police.uk crime figures record 317 offences in Northam in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 36 per 1,000 people, which sits roughly 34% below the local-authority average. Both are published figures. The rate is built on the statistical-area population rather than the resident headcount, so it is not something to verify at home with a calculator and a census result.
Set against Torridge as a whole, which records about 55 offences per 1,000, the town's 36 is the quiet end of an already quiet district. Two numbers rather than one adjective, and the gap between them is wide enough to survive a bad month without changing the answer.
The conditions behind those numbers are unremarkable, which is rather the point. Population density averages about 2,900 people per square kilometre across the built-up parts, unemployment sits at about 2%, and roughly 1% of households count as overcrowded. None of that causes anything by itself. It describes a settled town with space in it, offered as texture rather than explanation.
The mix needs its warning before its numbers. Three hundred and seventeen crimes spread across thirteen categories is a small base, where a handful of incidents shifts a share by several points, so treat what follows as a snapshot rather than a character reference. Violence and sexual offences account for about 43% of the total against about 35% across England and Wales, a category that covers a wide statutory range including common assault without injury and which comes top almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour is about 18% here against about 16% nationally, close enough to call the same thing. Criminal damage and arson runs about 11% against about 7%. Burglary sits at about 4% against about 4%, and public order at about 5% against about 7%.
What happens after somebody reports something is a different question from whether the street is safe, and the answer belongs to the force rather than the town. Devon and Cornwall Police charged or summonsed a suspect in about 8% of recorded crimes over the twelve months to May 2026, against about 12% nationally, which places the force 42nd out of 42. About 26% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. None of that reflects on Northam's streets, and all of it should shape expectations about the follow-up call.
Whatever else a buyer has to weigh here, personal safety is not the thing that will be keeping them up: the rate is low, the gap to the district is wide, and nothing in the record complicates it.