Redbridge Crime Figures: Wanstead Shoplifting Up 173%

Police recorded 29,361 crimes across Redbridge in the 12 months to August 2026, leaving out criminal damage. That is 868 more than in the year before, a rise of 3.0 per cent.

Two figures drove most of it. Violence and sexual offences rose by 12.5 per cent, and shoplifting by 27.5 per cent. The sharpest change of all was in Wanstead Village, where shoplifting reports went from 142 to 387.

These are our own counts from the Home Office’s police.uk open data. It publishes every crime the Metropolitan Police records, placed on a map. We added up every report inside the boundary of each of Redbridge’s 22 wards for the 24 months from September 2024 to August 2026. August 2026 is the newest month police.uk has published.

Why criminal damage is left out

The Met’s published data for criminal damage and arson almost disappears from May 2026. Across Redbridge it ran at between 110 and 141 reports a month until April. From May it drops to single figures.

We have found the same drop in Bromley, Sutton and Lewisham, so it looks like a gap in what the Met has sent to police.uk, not a sudden end to vandalism. Police.uk’s changelog carries no note about it. Counted as published, criminal damage would show a 30.4 per cent fall, from 1,453 reports to 1,011, and the total would rise by only 1.4 per cent. Neither would be real, so every figure below leaves criminal damage out of both years.

What went up, and what went down

The changes worth knowing about:

• Violence and sexual offences are the largest category and the fastest-growing big one. They rose by 1,064 reports. July 2026 was the highest month in the two years we counted, at 961 reports, against 801 in July 2025.
• Shoplifting rose by 550 reports. The busiest month in the two years was May 2026, with 307 reports.
• Theft from the person fell by 212, most of it in Ilford town centre.
• Vehicle crime fell by 266, and robbery by 82.
• Possession of weapons rose from 118 to 151. It is a small number, and one that depends partly on how often police stop and search people.

August on its own looks different. Police recorded 2,310 crimes that month, leaving out criminal damage, which is 7.0 per cent fewer than the 2,484 in August 2025. One month is too short to call a turn, especially after a high July.

Wanstead Village: shoplifting nearly tripled

Wanstead Village had the biggest rise of any ward. Recorded crime there went from 1,094 to 1,263, up 15.4 per cent.

Shoplifting accounts for all of that and more. Reports went from 142 to 387, an increase of 173 per cent. Other crime in the ward fell: vehicle crime from 159 to 112, and robbery from 60 to 27.

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The rise is concentrated in one place. Police.uk places each crime on an approximate map point rather than an exact address. Of the 387 shoplifting reports in the latest year, 354 sit on a single point labelled “Stables Row”, at the northern end of Wanstead High Street. The year before, that point carried 107.

So this is not shoplifting spreading through Wanstead’s streets. It is one site reporting far more of it, rising through the winter and peaking at 73 reports in May 2026 alone. The data cannot tell us whether that is more theft, more reporting by a retailer, or both.

The same pattern shows elsewhere in the borough, on a smaller scale:

• Goodmayes: shoplifting up from 297 to 396, with 361 of the latest year’s reports on one point labelled “Supermarket”.
• South Woodford: up from 148 to 236, with 185 on a point labelled “The Shrubberies”, up from 90.
• Wanstead Park: up from 10 to 48, with 45 on a single point on the A116.

Seven Kings: violence up a fifth

Seven Kings had the third-biggest rise, up 11.3 per cent to 1,996 reports. Violence and sexual offences there went from 1,004 to 1,204.

Much of that sits on one map point. Of the 1,204 reports, 547 are placed on a point labelled “Sports/recreation Area”, up from 448. Another 101 are on a point labelled “Hospital”. Police.uk moves each crime to the nearest of a fixed set of points to protect privacy, so a label like that says where the snap point is, not where the violence happened.

Violence rose in 17 of the 22 wards. The biggest rises after Seven Kings:

• Loxford: up from 604 to 733
• Goodmayes: up from 542 to 625
• Chadwell: up from 422 to 489
• Hainault: up from 398 to 474
• Barkingside: up from 276 to 371
• Wanstead Park: up from 114 to 172

Ilford Town: the most crime, but pickpocketing down

Ilford Town, which takes in the High Road, The Exchange and the station, records more crime than any other ward. It logged 3,903 reports in the year to August 2026, about 13 per cent of the borough total, and up 2.3 per cent. Busy town centres always top these tables, because that is where people shop, travel and go out.

Inside the ward, theft from the person fell by 30 per cent, from 607 reports to 423. That is pickpocketing and snatch theft. Violence rose from 843 to 960, and vehicle crime from 166 to 218.

Clayhall: the biggest fall

Clayhall fell further than any other ward, down 15.4 per cent from 1,089 to 921:

• shoplifting down from 176 to 107
• vehicle crime down from 146 to 99
• burglary down from 54 to 26

Fullwell, Churchfields and Valentines also fell by between 6 and 8 per cent.

Every ward, ranked by change

All figures leave out criminal damage, for the reason above.

How to read these figures

• Police.uk places every crime on an approximate map point. A crime near a ward edge can be counted in the neighbouring ward.
• These are recorded crimes. A change can mean more crime, more reporting, or more police activity. Drugs and weapons offences are mostly found by police, so they rise and fall with patrols and searches.
• Ward boundaries are the Met’s neighbourhood boundaries, which match Redbridge’s 22 wards.
• A small number of crimes each month are published with no location and are not counted here.

What it means for you

• If you run a shop, the Wanstead figures show how far one site can move a ward’s numbers. Reporting every theft is what puts a location on the police map, and that is what patrols are planned from.
• Check your own street. The police.uk crime map shows the latest month for any postcode, along with your Safer Neighbourhood Team and its priorities.
• To report a crime, call 101 or use the Met’s online reporting. In an emergency, call 999.

Our Ilford house prices page has the other side of what each part of the borough is like to live in, and parking in Ilford covers the town centre car parks.

Sources

• police.uk open data API: street-level crimes and Metropolitan Police neighbourhood boundaries for Redbridge’s 22 wards, September 2024 to August 2026, Open Government Licence. All counts and percentages are Ilford Today’s own, drawn from that data on 4 October 2026.
• police.uk changelog, checked 4 October 2026 for any notice on the Met’s criminal damage data (none found; its only Met notice is that August 2026 stop and search data was not provided).