A police chief has declared that Bradford is winning the war on gun crime after revealing there were only three shootings on the city’s streets in six months.

Bradford District Chief Inspector Dan Greenwood hailed its hard-hitting Operation Sabredale for slashing the number of firearm discharges in the district from 13 between October 2011 and April 2012 to three in the same period this year.

The senior officer said he believed the fall was prompted by the start of the police blitz to rid Bradford of drugs and guns last July.

And since then the number of shootings in the city has continued to fall, he said.

Figures revealed to the Telegraph & Argus show the total number of firearm discharges in Bradford fell from 27 in April 2011 to March 2012 to 23 last year – with 20 being committed in the first half of the year and three in the second.

Chief Insp Greenwood said: “That coincides with the launch of Operation Saberdale, which was set up to combat increased activity and this shows it has worked.

“However, three firearm discharges is still three too many and we are not going to rest.”

The figures have been revealed soon after raids through the operation saw 52 people arrested and 64 vehicles taken off the streets in the West Bowling area.

A stun gun that looked like a smart phone was also found and removed from one house and £31,000 was seized in total during a week-long community clean-up by police and partner agencies.

But figures revealed under the Freedom of Information Act show that while the number of shootings in Bradford has fallen, the involvement of guns was recorded in 78 crimes in the district last year.

Firearms were reported in 21 ‘violence against the person’ crimes, 14 robberies and six criminal damage offences in the Bradford South division.

And in Airedale and North Bradford guns were involved in 20 ‘violence against the person’ crimes – a figure which had doubled from the year before.

Guns were also reported in eight robberies, eight criminal damage cases and one other notifiable offence.

But Ch Insp Greenwood said those figures were not firearm discharges and included cases where a witness wrongly thought they had seen a gun or an imitation firearm had been used.

“Operation Sabredale focuses on firearms and drugs and the people involved in the discharge of firearms,” he said. “It is something that is unsettling for communities and something we needed to tackle.

“Our figures for this year are looking good at the minute but we can always do better.

“If you go back as far as 2007, there are usually between 20 and 27 firearm discharges in Bradford a year.

“My aim is to come down to fewer than that number.

“In Bradford I would say the discharge of firearms is generally linked to drug taking and drug supply.

“That is why we need to tackle them together.”