StreetCheck was a free postcode lookup that many buyers and renters bookmarked. In March 2026 it was bought by CrystalRoof. If you type streetcheck.co.uk now, you are sent there.
This page is for people who still search “StreetCheck” or “StreetCheck alternative” and want a plain account of what changed. CrimeMapsUK is not StreetCheck, and it does not replace every dataset StreetCheck used to show. It is a free way to read published police records - maps and dashboards, without a safety score.
StreetCheck was bought
CrystalRoof announced the purchase on 23 March 2026. StreetCheck had been a simple postcode search over public datasets: census figures, housing information, and crime among them. CrystalRoof’s announcement said StreetCheck users would move onto CrystalRoof’s neighbourhood product, including area ratings, heatmaps, local reviews, school analysis, and extra layers such as noise, flood risk, deprivation, and income.
That is a different kind of site from a single free postcode page with everything visible.
The old address now goes to CrystalRoof
As of August 2026, streetcheck.co.uk returns a permanent redirect to crystalroof.co.uk. Old bookmarks and old postcode URLs land on CrystalRoof, not on a separate StreetCheck page.
What CrystalRoof sells
CrystalRoof still lets you look up a postcode. It also sells paid access for fuller detail. Recent published consumer prices have been about £7.99 a week or £12.99 a month (a longer plan has also been advertised). Those prices can change; check CrystalRoof’s own site for the current offer.
CrystalRoof’s own copy talks about area ratings - scores across several factors. Write-ups of its checkout have listed “access to blurred data” among what a paid plan unlocks. We have not audited CrystalRoof’s product, and this is not a review of it.
If you want a scored neighbourhood pack that bundles schools, demographics, and similar layers, CrystalRoof is built for that. If you want to read the published police record without a score, start with police.uk or CrimeMapsUK.
What police.uk still gives you for free
The official sources did not go away when StreetCheck did.
- police.uk - look up an area or postcode, see the local neighbourhood team, and use the official crime map for recently published months
- data.police.uk - the same street-crime and stop-and-search files CrimeMapsUK loads, plus downloads and an API
Those pages are free. They are also the ground truth. Any third-party crime map, including this one, is a view of that release - not a separate official count.
What CrimeMapsUK gives you for free
CrimeMapsUK reshapes the same data.police.uk records so you can explore them without downloading monthly CSVs. The maps, dashboards, force and district pages, and articles are free. There is no account, no subscription, and no advertising. Optional neighbourhood PDF reports are the only paid product; they fund the rest of the site and do not lock the underlying data.
We do not invent a safety score, a ranking, or a crime forecast. Two areas can share a similar total and still have a very different mix - for example shoplifting around a retail park versus burglary on residential streets. A single score hides that. See Why we don’t predict crime.
Maps
- Crime map - search a postcode, pick a month, and see hex density for approximate police locations. Click a hex for counts, crime categories, and published outcomes.
- Stop and search map - the same hex approach for a separate dataset that StreetCheck-style postcode pages often skip.
Locations on data.police.uk are snapped to anonymous points before release. That is why we use a hex grid rather than exact-looking address pins. Read How to read a police crime map and How to interpret the hex maps.
Dashboards
These stay free, and they go further than a single postcode snapshot:
- Crime statistics - totals, category mix, and outcomes by force and month
- Stop and search statistics - age, gender, search type, legislation powers, recorded find rates, and published outcomes
- Trends - how published volumes change across the months currently loaded, not only the latest release
- Comparisons - two forces or two periods side by side, with a plain-English summary
On the dashboards you can open the data table under a chart for exact figures, and download a PNG of the current view (title, filters, and a CrimeMapsUK watermark). Walkthrough: How to use the dashboards.
Area pages
- Crime by police force area - for example Crime in London, Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds. A force area is much larger than one street.
- Crime by postcode district - for example E8. These pages sit between a whole force and a single postcode. See What a postcode district crime page shows.
Limits we publish rather than hide
- Approximate locations, recording gaps, and outcome lag are stated on the methodology page
- When a force stops or severely thins street-level publishing, the map can look “quiet” for the wrong reason. We document that in When police forces stop publishing street-level crime data
- Recent months can be revised after publication
- Outcome labels are not court conviction rates
What this site does not replace
StreetCheck mixed several public datasets in one postcode view. CrimeMapsUK covers published street crime and stop and search for England and Wales. It does not bundle census demographics, sold prices, EPC ratings, flood maps, schools, or broadband.
For those, use the official source directly - for example police.uk for crime, HM Land Registry for sold prices, and GOV.UK flood and school pages - or a neighbourhood product that is built to combine them. A crime check is also not a conveyancing search. See Crime checks vs conveyancing searches.
A practical next step
If you have a postcode in mind:
- Open the crime map, search the postcode, and read a few nearby hexes.
- Put that street in context on the matching force area page and, if listed, postcode district page.
- Use Trends or Comparisons when you care about change over time, not only one month.
- If you want a shareable PDF for a fixed 0.5 km circle, order a neighbourhood report.
For the longer walkthrough, see How to check crime rates before buying a house.