Revealed: the bike theft and house burglaries hotspots of the UK

We might want to have a redo on the phrase ‘safe as houses’.

Or at least we might when bearing in mind a damning new grab of data from national crime statistics, revealing that one home is burgled every minute in the UK. More worryingly, the stats come just weeks after the National Police Chiefs council warned officers may no longer attend burglaries due to budget cuts.

In all, 465,808 burglaries were reported between March of last year and March of this one, equating to an average of 1,276 burglaries every day – or one every 68 seconds – and it’s just one sobering piece of reading from the analysis by home security experts Safe Shop. Using data collected from 45 different police constabularies across the UK, made accessible due to the Government Open Licence for public sector information, the researchers also discovered the ‘clearance rate’ (percentage of cases solved) was frustratingly low, as 69 per cent of all burglary cases closed without any suspect identified.

And if you want to remain un-burgled, best stay out of Leeds, which was one of the worst affected cities of the past year with one burglary reported every 2 minutes and 55 seconds. That accounts to 10,215 burglaries in a year alone.

The study also found vehicle crimes were of similar levels to burglary, with one instance reported every 81 seconds. Birmingham in particular ranked very highly for vehicle crime, with over 10,000 reported incidents reported at a rate of one every 49 minutes and 44 seconds, not helped by the fact 90 per cent of cases closed without any suspect.

Look away now Wiggins: 98,011 bicycles stolen were pinched nationwide over the last year, a figure we are sure won’t make too many urban cyclists baulk. Though this might - Nottingham – home of British cycle giants Raleigh – is a hotspot for cycle crime, having had 3,740 bicycles stolen in the last 12 months. That’s four percent of bicycles stolen in the whole of the UK.

So there you have it, invest in extra loud house alarms in Leeds, park at your peril in Birmingham, and if you ride a bicycle in Nottingham make sure it’s a proficiently ugly one.

The Safe Shop has created a guide to theft prevention

[Images: Shutterstock]