Orpington is a safe place to live, with recorded crime running about a quarter below the rest of Bromley borough. Violence makes up a smaller share of incidents than it does nationally. Car crime makes up a bigger one. Unemployment and overcrowding are both rare. For most residents, the realistic worry is what happens to the car overnight.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 4,335 crimes in Orpington in the year to May 2026, and the published rate for the area comes out at about 67 per 1,000 residents. That puts it roughly 25% below the average for the London Borough of Bromley over the same twelve months.
Bromley's own published rate for that year was about 89 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Orpington's 67. Orpington is the part of the borough keeping the borough's average respectable.
The neighbourhood behind those numbers is suburban and comfortably settled into it. Orpington has about 4,100 residents per square kilometre on average, unemployment stands at about 2% and only about 2% of households are overcrowded. Those three figures describe streets of family houses with jobs and room to spare.
The mix of crime is where Orpington differs from the national pattern, and mostly in its favour. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes common assault without injury, make up 28% of recorded crime here against 35% across England and Wales. Anti-social behaviour accounts for 19% against 16% nationally. Vehicle crime is the outlier at 10%, compared with 5% nationally. Shoplifting at 9%, criminal damage and arson at 8% and public order offences at 7% all run within a point or two of the national shares. Four households in ten in Orpington run two or more cars, and the thieves have noticed. The police.uk crime map shows recorded crime street by street, month by month, and a look at the road you are considering costs nothing.
When a crime is reported, the Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which places it 33rd of 42 forces. Over the same twelve months, 53% of its cases were closed with nobody identified. Those are figures for the whole of London's force, and they measure what happens after a crime, which is a separate question from how often one happens in Orpington. A car alarm and a well-lit drive will do more for a car on the drive than the clear-up statistics will.
Safety is one of Orpington's real strengths: crime is well below the borough's level, and the main local risk is to whatever is parked outside overnight.