Safe in the dull way that actually matters to a buyer. The recorded crime rate sits slightly below the county's own. Nothing about a hillside of granite terraces produces dramatic numbers, and the figures agree. The one category running clearly above the national pattern is shoplifting, which is a town-centre problem rather than a residential-street one. Ordinary is the honest word here, and ordinary is what most people are hoping for.
Over the twelve months to May 2026, police.uk recorded 956 crimes in the area, a published rate of about 71 per thousand residents. That rate is calculated on a statistical population base rather than the resident headcount, so it is a figure to quote rather than one to recreate on the back of an envelope. It sits roughly 4% below the Cornwall average.
Put the two side by side and the gap is small: about 71 per thousand here against about 74 per thousand across Cornwall as a whole over the same period. This is a town performing in line with its county, not one outrunning it or dragging it down.
The texture behind those numbers is a compact town rather than a scattered parish. Population density averages about 4,490 people per square kilometre across the area, which is town-centre density by Cornish standards. Unemployment runs at about 2% and overcrowded households at about 3%. None of that causes anything on its own, but it describes the sort of place producing these figures: densely built, mostly working, and not under obvious housing strain.
On the mix, violence and sexual offences make up about 40% of recorded crime here against about 35% nationally, which sounds worse than it is until you know the category is a broad statutory grouping that runs from common assault without injury upwards, and that it is the largest category almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour accounts for about 13% locally against about 16% nationally, so slightly below the national pattern. Shoplifting is the genuine local outlier at about 12% against about 8%. Other theft sits at about 10% against about 7%, criminal damage and arson at about 10% against about 7%, and public order at about 7% against about 7%, which is as close to identical as these things get. The shape is a town with shops and a night-time economy, not one with a residential crime problem.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer is less comfortable. Devon and Cornwall Police charged a suspect in about 8% of cases across the force over the same twelve months, against about 12% nationally, which places the force last of the 42 in England and Wales on that measure. About 26% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. Those are force-wide numbers reflecting decisions made across two counties, not a measurement of this town, and they say nothing about how likely you are to be a victim here. They say quite a lot about what follows if you are.
Safety here lands in the middle of the range: a rate marginally better than the county it sits in, a mix skewed by the shops rather than the streets, and an outcome picture that is the force's problem rather than the town's.