Is Doncaster a safe city to live?

Thanks to government statistics and poll results it’s easier than ever to find out which towns and cities are the safest places to live, but naturally this can also mean paying more for the privilege of living there.

So as a Doncaster based business with so many customers who reside in the area we thought it would be useful to address specific safety concerns in Doncaster, uncovering how safe people feel living in the area and what they can do about local crime.

Happy at home?

It was only a few months ago that popular property website Rightmove published the results of their UK ‘Happy at Home Index‘ which you can view as an interactive map. Rightmove surveyed almost 50,000 people across 111 different UK towns and cities, and asked them to rank where they live against 12 factors – one of which was related to safety.

The overall results showed that Harrogate is the happiest place to live in the UK and it also came 1st out of the 111 different areas for how safe people in the community feel. So where did Doncaster factor in all of this?

Doncaster residents don’t feel as safe

Unfortunately the residents of Doncaster that were interviewed didn’t feel quite as confident as Harrogate residents when it came to their safety – the town ranked 9th against 10 other towns in Yorkshire (Bradford ranked the lowest) and 92nd out of all of the 111 areas in the UK. Interestingly though, we’re happy about our home running costs (ranking 6th in the UK), and are also a confident bunch when it comes to our home decor (ranking 8th in the UK).

So why is it that residents voted Doncaster as being so unsafe to live?

Burglary rates in Doncaster are higher

In the year ending March 2014, the crime rate in Doncaster, particularly for burglary was much higher than the average crime rate across similar areas in the UK. With these sorts of statistics it’s easy to understand why Doncaster residents don’t feel as safe in the community. The important thing as a resident of the town, or a surrounding village, is to arm yourself with all of the information you need to be able to protect your property and reduce the likelihood of becoming a victim of burglary.

Protecting your home in Doncaster

There are many ways in which you can protect your home to make it less at risk of being broken into. Doncaster Council provide guidance about Community Safety on their website and recommend that everyone take basic steps to protect their own property. They believe that this will reduce the number of sneak-in burglaries and car crime, as such a high proportion of these crimes are committed when the property hasn’t been properly secured. Here’s a great little guide we’ve put together that can help you to do this – Top 10 tips for securing your home.

And of course we would always recommend reporting any crime quickly and accurately to the South Yorkshire Police by calling the non emergency line number: 101.