Yes, and it is quieter than the borough around it. Crime runs well below the Tunbridge Wells rate. The mix of offences looks much like anywhere else. The one category that stands out is damage to property, not harm to people. It's a safe town with a few broken windows in the crime figures.
In the year from June 2025 to May 2026, 686 crimes were recorded in Southborough, which works out at a published rate of about 50 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 29% below the average for the Tunbridge Wells local authority area. Both figures are published rates and counts, so compare them as published rather than redoing the sums.
To put numbers on the comparison, the Tunbridge Wells area as a whole runs at about 70 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Southborough's 50. Southborough sits on a main road and next to a busier town, and it still comes out as the quieter half of the pair.
In terms of neighbourhood texture, the average density across its neighbourhoods is about 5,460 people per square kilometre, which is built-up enough to have neighbours on both sides but not a city. Unemployment is about 3% and about 4% of households are overcrowded. Those figures describe the kind of place it is: settled, employed and not crammed in. They don't explain the crime figures.
The crime mix is mostly what you would find anywhere. Violence and sexual offences make up about 38% of recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That is close to the national share, and the category covers a wide legal range that includes common assault without injury, so on its own it is less alarming than it sounds. Anti-social behaviour is about 16%, level with the national share. Criminal damage and arson is about 10%, against about 7% nationally, which is the clearest gap on the list and is about property, not people. Shoplifting (about 9% against 8%), other theft (about 8% against 7%) and public order (about 6% against 7%) all sit within a point or so of the national shares.
Whether anyone gets charged is a question for the force, not the town. Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which placed it sixth of 42 forces over the year from June 2025 to May 2026. About 36% of cases are closed with no suspect identified, which is the honest answer to whether they'll catch whoever took the bike. None of this measures how safe Southborough is. It measures what happens after something goes wrong.
Safety is one of Southborough's real strengths. The crime rate sits comfortably below its neighbours', and the one category running high is about property, not people.