Vehicle crime in the North West: the 2026 figures by town

People often ask us whether car crime is bad where they live. Rather than give an impression, here are the police’s own figures for every town and village we cover, with the year before for comparison and an honest note on what they can and cannot tell you.

What these figures count

Every number here comes from data.police.uk, the national police data site, and covers the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026. The year before is September 2024 to August 2025.

Three things are worth knowing before you read them.

“Vehicle crime” is three crimes counted together. In police figures it covers a vehicle being stolen, something being stolen from a vehicle, and a vehicle being tampered with. The published data does not split them, so a high number does not mean that many cars were driven away.

Each place is counted within one mile of its centre. That keeps the comparison fair between a city and a village, but neighbouring places can overlap. Chester and Hoole, for example, share some of the same streets, so the figures should be read side by side, never added up.

Busy places record more. A city centre has far more cars parked in it than a village, so it will always record more. These numbers show where vehicle crime is recorded, not how likely your own car is to be targeted.

The main towns

Within a mile of	Police force	Sep 2025 to Aug 2026	Year before	Change
Liverpool city centre	Merseyside	678	436	Up 56%
Preston	Lancashire	337	367	Down 8%
St Helens	Merseyside	147	115	Up 28%
Warrington	Cheshire	140	148	Down 5%
Birkenhead	Merseyside	98	110	Down 11%
Widnes	Cheshire	70	47	Up 49%
Congleton	Cheshire	43	53	Down 19%
Chester	Cheshire	35	45	Down 22%

What stands out

Liverpool city centre’s rise is mostly one autumn. Nearly all of the increase was recorded between September and December 2025. From January 2026 the monthly count has been back around its usual level, so the yearly figure makes the city centre look worse now than it is.

Most places went down. Of the 53 places in the full table below, 31 recorded less vehicle crime than the year before, and two the same.

Small numbers swing hard. Heswall went from 25 to 1, and Great Sankey from 15 to 46. With counts that low, a single busy street or one bad month moves the percentage a long way, which is why we would not read much into the change for any village.

Quiet does not mean safe for your car. Wilmslow, Alderley Edge and Knutsford all record low numbers, and they are also where a lot of high value cars are parked. Thieves after a particular car tend to choose the car first and the place second. We cover which cars get targeted separately.

Why there are no figures for Greater Manchester

Manchester, Bolton and Wigan are missing because Greater Manchester Police have not supplied street level crime data to the national site since July 2019. They confirmed this in a Freedom of Information response in January 2026, and said they have no timeline for starting again.

The national site therefore shows next to nothing for Greater Manchester. That is a gap in the data, not an absence of crime, so we have left those areas out rather than print a misleading zero.

Every place we cover

Area	Within a mile of	Sep 2025 to Aug 2026	Year before
Liverpool	Liverpool city centre	678	436
Liverpool	Crosby	91	108
Liverpool	Aigburth	69	73
Liverpool	Huyton	69	74
Liverpool	Woolton	56	61
Liverpool	Formby	17	37
Liverpool	Knowsley	10	6
Wirral	Birkenhead	98	110
Wirral	Wallasey	27	50
Wirral	West Kirby	17	7
Wirral	Hoylake	15	15
Wirral	Bebington	14	30
Wirral	Heswall	1	25
St Helens	St Helens	147	115
St Helens	Newton-le-Willows	56	64
St Helens	Eccleston	49	32
St Helens	Haydock	39	44
St Helens	Rainhill	28	31
St Helens	Billinge	10	8
St Helens	Rainford	8	15
Widnes	Appleton	100	65
Widnes	Widnes	70	47
Widnes	Runcorn	53	64
Widnes	Farnworth	53	50
Widnes	Cronton	32	17
Widnes	Hale	2	2
Warrington	Warrington	140	148
Warrington	Stockton Heath	73	42
Warrington	Great Sankey	46	15
Warrington	Grappenhall	36	23
Warrington	Penketh	20	8
Warrington	Culcheth	9	10
Warrington	Lymm	7	10
Chester	Ellesmere Port	101	77
Chester	Hoole	39	47
Chester	Chester	35	45
Chester	Upton	25	32
Chester	Neston	10	18
Chester	Christleton	3	13
Chester	Tarporley	1	5
Cheshire	Congleton	43	53
Cheshire	Nantwich	36	22
Cheshire	Northwich	32	27
Cheshire	Wilmslow	20	37
Cheshire	Knutsford	13	9
Cheshire	Alderley Edge	8	7
Preston	Preston	337	367
Preston	Chorley	97	124
Preston	Penwortham	85	87
Preston	Leyland	75	83
Preston	Fulwood	62	59
Preston	Bamber Bridge	52	65
Preston	Longridge	13	24

Each area’s own page has its figures too, starting with Liverpool, St Helens and Warrington.

What the figures cannot tell you

They cannot tell you how your particular car would be stolen, and that matters more than your postcode. A keyless car is exposed to relay theft wherever it is parked, and thieves can program a new key through the diagnostic port on many cars once they are inside. Neither depends on whether your street is busy.

So the useful question is not “is my area bad?” but “what does a thief need to take my car, and what stops it?” For most people worried about the car leaving the driveway, the answer is an immobiliser that ignores the key, such as an Autowatch Ghost or a Pandora Microbot. If you also want to know when somebody is trying, that is an alarm.

Tell us the make, model and year, and we will tell you what thieves go after on it and what we would fit.