Community Safety


Current Work

The Wirral Community Safety Partnership (Safer Wirral) is a collaborative approach among local agencies to enhance safety across Wirral.

The partnership's most recent strategy for 2021-2025 outlines ten priority themes aimed at improving community safety. These themes include addressing anti-social behaviour, violent crime, domestic abuse, drugs and alcohol, hate crime, modern slavery, prevention, road safety, emergency planning, and coastal and inland water safety. 

The previous full strategy document can be accessed for more detailed information.

A new strategy is currently being planned with the accompanying needs assessment (details to follow). Consultations are ongoing with elected members, stakeholders and Wirral residents.

This will focus on the current strategic priorities and whether they are still relevant, along with perceptions of safety. 

 

Crime and disorder in Wirral, 2026 (12 months to end of March 2026)

Crime and disorder and the perception of crime are key factors in influencing quality of life for residents in England.

This LG Inform report (below) provides an overview of the different types of police recorded crime for our area, summarising the key offences, and trends in Wirral as well as providing a comparison to other areas.

Data is taken from the Police recorded crime survey published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is updated quarterly (March, July, October and January).

Data is published at a combined crime partnership level which in most cases is the same as local authorities, but in a small number of cases data wont be available at the local authority level.

Crime and disorder in Wirral (12 months to end of March 2026)

Crime and disorder in Wirral, 2026 (12 months to end of March 2026)
In this period, Wirral had recorded 70.86 crimes per 1000 people. This had increased from 68.38 crimes per 1000 people in the last equivalent period. The number of recorded offences (excluding fraud) in Wirral for the past 12 months was 23,378 crimes.

This ranks Wirral 1 (lowest) out of 36 in All English metropolitan boroughs. Wirral had the lowest number of offences 70.86 crimes per 1000 people in this quarter with Manchester having the largest number at 143.02 crimes per 1000 people offences.

Top five crimes in Wirral in 2026 Q1 (12 months ending)
1. Violence against the person - without injury offences recorded
2. Stalking and harassment offences recorded
3. Public order offences recorded
4. Criminal damage and arson offences recorded
5. Violence against the person - with injury offences recorded

Top five crimes in Wirral in the last equivalent period 2025 Q1 (12 months ending)
1. Violence against the person - without injury offences recorded
2. Stalking and harassment offences recorded
3. Public order offences recorded
4. Criminal damage and arson offences recorded
5. Violence against the person - with injury offences recorded


Recent projects and publications


Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership

The Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) is a team of subject leads and experts working together, with communities, to address the underlying causes of violence and prevent it. They adopt a public health approach, focusing on intervening in a positive way to help young people and families from before birth to young adulthood.

Strategic Needs Assessment

The Strategic Needs Assessment (SNA) for Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) allows MVRP and partners to understand what Serious Violence (SV) in Merseyside looks like, using both an evidence-based and public health approach.

Reviewing data and information from a range of sources gives a solid understanding for both the MVRP and partners to put interventions in place and have a big impact to reduce SV across the Merseyside region.

View Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership Strategic Needs Assessment 2024 - 2025

Representative Household Survey (April 2025)

Merseyside Violence and Community Safety (MerVCom) Representative Household Survey (April 2025) Wirral Local Authority Summary Report

Highlights from the survey

In 2023/24, the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) collaborated with the Public

Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) to implement the Merseyside Violence and Community Safety (MerVCom) Survey. The MerVCom survey is a population-level representative household survey of 5395 adults (aged 18+ years) which aimed to better understand community feelings of safety and cohesion, and perceptions and experiences of violence (including adverse childhood experiences [ACEs]) across Merseyside, and relationships of these with health and wellbeing. For Wirral 1,236 residents were interviewed.

Regarding perceptions of community safety, 66.6% of participants residing in the Wirral felt safe in Merseyside generally during the day, compared to 44.5% during the night. For those residents who felt unsafe in public settings during the day and night:

  • In the nearest town centre – 15.8% of residents felt unsafe during the daytime, and 33.4% unsafe in this setting at nighttime.
  • Within their neighbourhood (within a 15-minute walk from their home) – 5.3% of residents felt unsafe during the daytime and 15.1% felt unsafe during nighttime.
  • In the street where they live – 3.7% felt unsafe during the daytime and 11.1% felt unsafe during the nighttime.

For those residents who felt unsafe in recreational and transport settings during the day and night:

  • In their nearest park – 10.4% felt unsafe during the daytime and 39.4% felt unsafe during the nighttime.
  • In pubs, bars, and clubs – 9.4% felt unsafe during the daytime and 20.6% felt unsafe during the nighttime.
  • On public transport or at public transport stations – 6.7% felt unsafe during the daytime and 19.1% felt unsafe during the nighttime.
  • At taxi ranks – 6.3% felt unsafe during the daytime and 16.8% felt unsafe during the nighttime.

Overall, this data highlights on a whole residents feel generally safe in their local area, particularly during the daytime, however, these feelings of safety reduce during nighttime.


EVOLVE Wirral 

The Clear, Hold, Build initiative, which is supported by the Home Office and known locally as EVOLVE Wirral, covers Beechwood and Ballantyne, Noctorum, and Woodchurch and aims to improve communities worst affected by serious and organised crime.

The Clear and Hold phases were launched following the murder of Elle Edwards on December 24, 2022 while the Build phase was launched on May 18, 2023 and is designed to build communities into more prosperous and safer areas resilient to gang-related activity.

Since then, police and partners have been working hard to rid the areas of criminality while supporting and strengthening communities.

Qualitative Insight Report

Understanding the impact of the Evolve programme: perspectives on safety, wellbeing and opportunity in Beechwood and Ballantyne, Noctorum, and Woodchurch. - Wirral Health and Wellbeing Knowledge Hub

This research explores residents’ awareness, experiences and perceptions of the Evolve programme across Beechwood and Ballantyne, Noctorum, and Woodchurch. 

The Evolve programme is a Home Office funded initiative to tackle serious, organised crime in these three areas. It has funded a range of projects to create safer and more resilient communities. Insights were gathered through door knocking and through engagement at community venues. 

In total, 181 residents shared their views on the impact of the programme, the outstanding issues within their communities and future opportunities. The findings highlight the positive impact of Evolve-funded activities on wellbeing, social connection and community resilience. 

Press Releases

To be added


Community Safety Strategy

The new Community Safety Strategy will run from 2026-2031 and the content will be updated here upon publication.

This will detail the strategic priorities for Community Safety, along with action plans for thematic areas.

Community Safety Strategy Consultation

A consultation was run to hear the feedback from residents and stakeholders about community safety in Wirral, to help inform the development of the new Wirral Community Safety Strategy (2026-2030).

Participants were asked how safe they felt in different settings outside of the home, and what they felt the priorities should be for the 2026-2030 Community Safety Strategy.

The consultation ran for three weeks between 8 June and 28 June 2026, and the findings will be used to formulate the new Community Safety Strategy and discussed at the Tourism, Communities, Culture and Leisure committee in Autumn 2026.


Past Supporting Evidence

Previous supporting evidence

  • Neighbourhood Crime Statistics for Wirral Community Police Team - Hub One and Wirral Community Police Team - Hub Two (Currently data not available from Police UK)

  • Wirral Violence Profile(December 2014) 
    This profile, was produced by Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University, for Wirral's then Community Safety Partnership

  • Trauma and Injury Intelligence Group (TIIG): Merseyside and Cheshire Themed Report: Assaults in the home across Merseyside and Cheshire(2011/12 to 2012/13)
    This Trauma and Injury Intelligence Group (TIIG) report provides an analysis of assault in the home attendances to Accident and Emergency Departments (AEDs) across Merseyside and Cheshire, reporting on patient demography and incident levels between April 2011 and March 2013.

  • Trauma and Injury Intelligence Group (TIIG): Trends in violence across the North West of England 
    This briefing for commissioners and providers is to look at violence-related attendances to all Emergency Departments across the North West of England, supplemented by North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) data, providing a much more detailed picture of violence-related activity across the region.

Previous content

Crime and Safety (December 2019)

Wirral JSNA: Crime and Disorder Summary provided by Wirral Community Safety Partnership