Revealed: Durham has lowest number of crimes reported in any Russell Group uni city

According to a new study, Durham has the lowest number of reported crimes than any other Russell Group university city.

Travel site OMIO collected data for crimes reported in U.K. cities with Russell Group universities in 2023.

With 2,037 crimes, Durham recorded the lowest number of crimes reported across all Russell Group university cities in the U.K. Exeter was the next best place to study for safety with 2,759 crimes reported, while other smaller cities such as Cambridge, York and Oxford made up the rest of the top five.

On the other end of the spectrum, the London universities (University College London, London School of Economics and Political Science, King’s College London, Imperial College London and Queen Mary’s) fared worst with a disturbing number of 887,870 crimes reported across the calendar year.

Unsurprisingly, other universities in cities with high populations also struggled, with Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds making up the next four cities with the highest number of crimes reported .

While this figure appears positive for DH1, it is important to remember that Durham’s population is less than half the size of any other Russell Group university city – the next smallest city is Exeter which has a population of 134,939, 2.67 times higher than Durham’s 50,510.

When analysing the data in relation to population size (based on 2021 ONS estimates), Durham becomes closer to the average. Exeter, Cambridge, York and Cardiff all have lower rates of crime reported per person, while large cities such as Bristol, Oxford and Newcastle are only very marginally safer.

To put things into perspective, Durham is almost exactly twice as dangerous as Exeter and almost exactly twice as safe as Glasgow. Under this metric, Manchester is the most dangerous Russell Group university city, with Edinburgh following it as a close second.

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Data was not recorded for the cities of Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Belfast, Southampton and Lancaster. CrimeRate reports that from June 2023 to June 2024, these cities recorded the following numbers of crimes reported: Birmingham (146,864), Nottingham (44,242), Sheffield (62,621), Belfast (3,615), Southampton (31,803) and Lancaster (8,074). Of course, this data has not been collected by OMIO and is in a timespan six months apart, but it is nonetheless a strong indicator that Durham still has the lowest number of crimes reported.

While Durham is technically the safest Russell Group university city to live in, this is largely due to its small size and population. By taking population size into account, Durham is still a much safer city to live in than most but is far from the most crime-free location to study.

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• Durham Uni withdraws three offers for incoming freshers over racist group chat

Featured image via Flora Kanan