70 violence and sexual offence reports in central Bromsgrove in August. Over a year, violence rose 2% while most other crime fell, and is now 53% of the total.
Police recorded 149 crimes and anti-social behaviour reports within a mile of central Bromsgrove in August 2026. Almost half of them, 70, were violence and sexual offences.
That is not a one-month spike. Over the 12 months to August, most types of crime in the town centre fell, but violence and sexual offences rose slightly. They now make up 53 per cent of all recorded crime once anti-social behaviour is set aside.
The figures come from police.uk, which publishes every report West Mercia Police records, mapped to the nearest street. We downloaded two years of them through the data.police.uk API on 4 October, using the same one-mile circle each month.
August in numbers
| Type | August 2025 | August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 61 | 70 |
| Anti-social behaviour | 30 | 29 |
| Public order | 11 | 12 |
| Criminal damage and arson | 13 | 8 |
| Other theft | 10 | 8 |
| Shoplifting | 10 | 7 |
| Vehicle crime | 5 | 4 |
| Burglary | 8 | 3 |
| Everything else | 12 | 8 |
| Total | 160 | 149 |
The total was 11 lower than in August 2025. Violence was the only large category to go up, by nine reports.
A year of change
Comparing the 12 months to August 2026 with the 12 months before gives a steadier picture than any single month.
| Type | Sep 2024 to Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 756 | 768 | up 2% |
| Shoplifting | 137 | 129 | down 6% |
| Public order | 140 | 125 | down 11% |
| Criminal damage and arson | 113 | 96 | down 15% |
| Other theft | 124 | 83 | down 33% |
| Burglary | 82 | 79 | down 4% |
| Vehicle crime | 65 | 51 | down 22% |
| Drugs | 21 | 28 | up 33% |
| Possession of weapons | 16 | 20 | up 25% |
| All crime, excluding anti-social behaviour | 1,534 | 1,450 | down 5% |
The falls are broad:
- Other theft dropped by a third, from 124 reports to 83.
- Vehicle crime fell by 22 per cent and criminal damage by 15 per cent.
- Bicycle theft halved, from 17 to 8, though the numbers are small.
The rises are small in number but worth noting. Drug offences went from 21 to 28, and possession of weapons from 16 to 20. Both are often found through police activity rather than reported by the public, so a rise can reflect more stop and search as much as more crime.
Shoplifting in the town centre has stayed fairly steady, between 4 and 27 reports a month over the two years. August had 7.
Violence: the one category not falling
Violence and sexual offences have run between 47 and 86 reports a month over the two years. The highest month was March 2026, with 86. July 2026 had 79. September 2024, the first month in the chart, had 64.
The category is wide. It covers everything from common assault and harassment to serious injury and sexual offences, and police.uk does not split it further. It includes harassment and stalking, and assaults in private homes as well as in public.
Of August’s 70 reports, police.uk lists:
- 54 as still under investigation
- 14 as “unable to prosecute suspect”
- 2 as investigation complete with no suspect identified
Where the reports are mapped
Police.uk places each report at the nearest of a set of anonymous map points, not at the real address, so street-level counts are only a guide.
In August the most-used point was a car park, labelled simply “Parking Area”, with 18 reports, 9 of them violence. Next came Church Street with 9 and Market Place with 6. The car park point is not named, and we have not guessed which one it is.
How to read these figures
- The counts are for a circle with a radius of one mile around central Bromsgrove, not the whole district.
- Anti-social behaviour shows zero reports for April and May 2026. That is a gap in the published data, not two quiet months, so the 12-month anti-social behaviour total of 235, against 386 a year before, should not be read as a real fall. We have left it out of the year-on-year total above for that reason.
- Recorded crime reflects what is reported and how it is recorded. A change can come from policing activity as well as from crime itself.
- Figures are revised. Police.uk can change a month after it is first published.
What it means for you
- Report non-emergency crime to West Mercia Police online or on 101. Call 999 if a crime is happening or someone is in danger.
- You can see the figures for your own street on police.uk.
- If you are worried about a pattern of anti-social behaviour near you, the district council’s community safety team works with the police on it.
We will update these figures each month as police.uk publishes them.
Sources
- police.uk, West Mercia Police neighbourhood data, downloaded through the data.police.uk street-level crime API on 4 October 2026, for every month from September 2024 to August 2026, centred on central Bromsgrove. Open Government Licence.
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