Yes, Welling is a safe area, and safer than the borough around it. Recorded crime is about a quarter below the Bexley average. Violence makes up a smaller share of it than in most of the country. Car crime makes up more. For a town on a main road into London, it is a calm place to live.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 2,584 crimes in Welling in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, published on police.uk as a rate of about 61 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 25% below the average for the London Borough of Bexley. Most of Welling's crime days are uneventful ones.
Across Bexley as a whole, the rate is about 81 per 1,000. Welling's 61 against the borough's 81 is a clear gap, wide enough that a few extra incidents in a bad month would not close it.
The area that produces those numbers is dense and settled. Welling averages about 7,070 residents per square kilometre, 3% of residents are unemployed and 5% of households are overcrowded. In other words, the streets are full of people who own semis, go to work and know who parks outside whose house.
The mix of crime matters more than the total. Violence and sexual offences make up about 29% of Welling's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category covers a wide legal range, including common assault where nobody was hurt, and it is the largest category almost everywhere. Here it is below the national share. Anti-social behaviour is about 18% against 16% nationally, criminal damage and arson about 7% against 7%, and other theft about 6% against 7%, so all three are close to the national pattern. Shoplifting is higher, at about 11% against 8%, which is what you get with a busy high street. Vehicle crime is the real outlier, at about 11% of local crime against 5% nationally. Police.uk shows crime month by month on a street map, so look at the road you are thinking of buying on and see whether the vehicle crime markers cluster there or somewhere else. Thieves here are mostly after cars, not people.
What happens after a crime is reported is a different question, and the answer comes from the force, not the town. The Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 33rd of 42 forces. About 53% of its cases close with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures for the whole of London and say nothing about how safe Welling's streets are. If something is stolen, expect a crime reference number, and do not expect it back.
Safety is one of Welling's real strengths: crime is well below the borough, violence is below the national share, and the main thing to protect is the car.