Yes, and less dramatically than the label on the biggest category suggests. Recorded crime here sits below the Somerset average, and not by a rounding error. The town is small, the streets are ordinary, and most of what gets recorded is the sort of thing that happens wherever people drink within walking distance of home. What the numbers cannot capture is that the reputation of a place this size is usually set by whoever posts the most. Wellington is safe in the way market towns are safe: quietly, and with a Friday night.
Over the twelve months to May 2026, police.uk recorded 1,478 crimes across Wellington, working out at a published rate of about 81 per thousand people. That is roughly 13% below the Somerset average. Both of those are published figures on their own statistical population bases, which is why the rate cannot be reverse-engineered from the count and the number of residents and should not be.
The comparison is worth seeing in full rather than as a bare "below average". Somerset as a whole records about 93 crimes per thousand people. Wellington records about 81. Same county, same force, same recording practice, twelve points of difference.
The kind of place producing those numbers is exactly what it looks like from the road. Population density averages around 3,900 people per square kilometre across the built-up parts, which is town-sized rather than city-sized. Unemployment runs at around 2%, and around 2% of households are overcrowded. Those are descriptive facts about the texture of the place rather than an explanation of the crime figures, and anyone drawing a straight line between them is doing their own arithmetic.
On the mix, the headline category needs unpacking before it does any damage. Violence and sexual offences account for around 49% of recorded crime in Wellington against around 35% nationally. That is a broad statutory grouping that runs from serious assault down to common assault where nobody was injured, and it is the largest category in almost every place in England and Wales. Public order sits at around 12% locally against around 7% nationally, which in a small town usually means shouting. Anti-social behaviour is close to the national picture at around 16% against around 16%, as is criminal damage and arson at around 7% against around 7%. Where Wellington comes in lower is retail: shoplifting is around 4% of recorded crime here against around 8% nationally, and other theft around 5% against around 7%.
Then there is the part nobody puts in the brochure, which is what happens after you dial 101. Avon and Somerset Constabulary charged a suspect in about 11% of cases over the twelve months to May 2026, against about 12% across England and Wales, ranking 24th of 42 forces. Around 30% of cases were closed with no suspect identified at all. Those are force-wide figures covering everything from Bristol to the Blackdowns, not Wellington's own, and they answer a completely different question from the crime rate. One tells you how likely something is to happen. The other tells you how likely anyone is to be held responsible for it, and the honest answer is that the odds are not in your favour anywhere in the country.
Safety is one of the stronger things Wellington has going for it, and the strength is undramatic rather than exceptional. Read the violence share without the national comparison beside it and the town sounds like somewhere it is not, which is the single most common way people misread a small town's crime numbers.