Yes, and by a wider margin than most villages can claim. Recorded crime here runs about a third below the district average. The volume across a full year is small enough to read in one sitting. What gets reported is heavily weighted toward categories that turn on a handful of incidents. The honest caveat is not about the risk of living here. It is about what happens after you dial the number.
Police.uk records 242 crimes in Willand in the year to May 2026, a rate of roughly 42 per thousand people. That is a published rate calculated on its own statistical population base, not something arrived at by dividing incidents by residents, and the two methods do not give the same answer. Set against Mid Devon as a whole, the village sits about 31% below the local authority average. For a place with a motorway junction on its doorstep, that is a better result than the geography would lead you to expect.
The comparison is worth seeing as two numbers rather than one adjective. Willand records about 42 crimes per thousand people. Mid Devon as a whole records about 60. Both figures cover the same twelve months to May 2026, and the gap between them is the whole argument.
The texture behind those numbers is what you would guess from walking round. The built-up part of the village runs at an average of roughly 2,200 people per square kilometre, which is estate density rather than open countryside. Unemployment sits at about 1% and overcrowded households at about 1%, both of which describe a settled, working, comfortably housed population. None of that causes the crime rate to be what it is, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling a theory rather than reading a table.
The mix needs handling carefully, because 242 crimes across thirteen categories is a small enough base that a few incidents move a share by several points. On those numbers, violence and sexual offences account for about 47% against roughly 35% nationally. That category is a broad statutory grouping that includes common assault with no injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere in England and Wales, so a high share is not the picture of a violent village it sounds like. Criminal damage and arson comes in at about 15% against roughly 7% nationally. Anti-social behaviour runs at about 12% against roughly 16%, other theft at about 5% against roughly 7%, public order at about 5% against roughly 7%, and vehicle crime at about 4% against roughly 5%. Read those as this year's arrangement of a small pile of incidents, not as a settled characteristic of the place.
Then there is what happens after a report, which is a different question from how safe the streets are and should never be blended with it. Devon and Cornwall Police charge a suspect in about 8% of cases, against roughly 12% nationally, and the force ranks 42nd out of 42 forces on that measure. There is no diplomatic way to write last. About 26% of cases are closed with no suspect identified at all. That is force-wide performance across a vast rural territory, it carries no street-level signal about Willand, and it is the honest answer to the question people actually mean when they ask whether anyone gets caught.
Safety is the strongest thing Willand has going for it: a crime rate well under the district average, a small annual volume, and nothing in the numbers that would make a buyer hesitate. Just do not confuse a quiet village with a police force that has the capacity to chase things down.