Neighbourhood crime has fallen more sharply in Coventry than anywhere else in the West Midlands, according to new figures.
Recorded neighbourhood crime in the city was 39.2% lower in 2025/26 than two years earlier, the biggest reduction across any of the seven West Midlands Police local policing areas.
That puts Coventry comfortably ahead of Wolverhampton, where neighbourhood crime fell by 34.5%, and Solihull, where it dropped by 26%.
Across the West Midlands as a whole, the reduction was 24.54%.
The figures appear in West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster’s latest annual report and cover offences many people are most likely to associate with crime happening around where they live.
That includes residential burglary, robbery, theft from the person and vehicle crime.
And the falls across some of those individual offences have been substantial.
Across the West Midlands, residential burglaries fell from 14,155 in the year ending March 2024 to 10,308 in the year ending March 2026.
Personal robberies dropped from 7,426 to 4,593, while vehicle crime fell from 34,032 offences to 27,198.
Overall, 44,634 neighbourhood crimes were recorded across the West Midlands in 2025/26, compared with the baseline figure of 59,150 two years earlier.
But Coventry’s 39.2% reduction was significantly greater than the regional average.
Overall crime is falling in Coventry too
The neighbourhood crime figures fit into a wider downward trend in the city.
West Midlands Police revealed earlier this year that total recorded crime in Coventry fell by 7.37% in 2025/26, from 35,457 offences to 32,843.
Some individual offences recorded particularly large falls.
Theft from vehicles dropped by 20.76%, from 1,628 offences to 1,290.
The theft or unauthorised taking of vehicles fell by 19.69%, harassment by 17.25% and assaults resulting in injury by 12.37%.
Shop theft also dropped by 8.63%, from 3,787 recorded offences to 3,460.
Coventry Police Commander Chief Superintendent Paul Joyce said in May that the reductions reflected work by officers to identify crime trends and particular areas of concern.
But he also cautioned against treating the figures as job done.
He said the previous 12 months represented a good start, but police wanted to do more to make Coventry a safe place to live and work.
Coventry’s crime rate is below the West Midlands average
There is another interesting figure when Coventry is compared with the rest of the region.
Official Police.uk figures for the year ending March 2026 put Coventry’s overall recorded crime rate at 88.9 offences per 1,000 residents.
The West Midlands Police force-area average was 103.21.
Birmingham stood considerably higher at 118.38 crimes per 1,000 residents, while Sandwell was at 103.63, Wolverhampton 98.73 and Walsall 96.98.
Solihull and Dudley both recorded lower overall rates than Coventry.
It means Coventry had the third-lowest recorded crime rate of the seven West Midlands policing areas during that period.
That might surprise some people.
Crime statistics and people’s actual perception of safety don’t always move together. Someone dealing with antisocial behaviour on their street, having their car broken into or avoiding a particular part of the city at night is unlikely to feel much better because a city-wide statistic is heading downwards.
And falling crime certainly doesn’t mean crime has disappeared.
But a 39.2% reduction in neighbourhood crime over two years is substantial, particularly when the equivalent reduction across the West Midlands was less than 25%.
Not everything is heading in the same direction
There is also a significant exception to the positive regional picture.
Business crime across the West Midlands increased by 2.57% compared with the baseline year.
The increase was largely driven by shoplifting, which rose by 30.2% across the force area.
That makes Coventry’s own 8.63% annual reduction in recorded shop theft particularly interesting.
Meanwhile, fraud and cybercrime reports across the West Midlands increased from 15,877 in the baseline year to 17,362 in 2025/26, although police have also been actively encouraging more victims to report those offences.
So this isn’t a story about every type of crime suddenly collapsing.
It is a more specific and potentially more significant one.
The crimes happening in neighbourhoods, including burglary, robbery and vehicle crime, have fallen considerably across the West Midlands.
And nowhere in the region has recorded a bigger reduction than Coventry.
Does Coventry feel safer to you than it did two years ago, or do the figures not match what you’re seeing in your part of the city?
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