Safer communities and police strategies to tackle serious crimes are paying dividends as burglary and vehicle-related thefts have fallen in the last six months across the district.

Targets in offences such as burglaries, theft from vehicles, theft of vehicles and robbery, were not being met.

But a push since April has resulted in a fall of 16 per cent in this type of crime across the district – known as “serious acquisitive crime”.

There were 2,490 house burglaries recorded in the six months – a fall of 3.9 per cent on the same period last year. Thefts from vehicles fell to 1,798, a drop of 26.2 per cent, and thefts of vehicles dropped by 30.4 per cent to 740. Robberies increased by 9.5 per cent to 324 over the same period.

A breakdown of crimes by ward, showed that the City, Eccleshill, Bowling and Barkerend, Great Horton, and Bolton and Undercliffe areas were the worst affected.

In a report to a Bradford Council committee, assistant director of safer and stronger communities Selina Ullah said: “Between April 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009, there have been 5,352 serious acquisitive crime offences recorded in the district, at a rate of 10.85 offences per 1,000 in the population. This is a 16.2 per cent (1,034 offences) reduction compared to the same period in 2008.

“The target for this indicator is currently being achieved and exceeded, as the target for September was 12.0 per 1,000 population – 5,934 offences.

“Projections for serious acquisitive crime based on three, six and 12 months data predict that there will be further reductions.”

A number of initiatives are helping improve the performance in this area, and in the first half of 2009/10, the target is now being met. These include: l a senior officer within the safer communities team is now dedicated to acquisitive crime and burglary; l funding of £100,000 from the Home Office’s Safer Homes Fund has been secured for 720 homes in the worst affected areas to receive help by the end of March; Bradford has been allocated £70,000 from the Home Office Vigilance Project to tackle burglary, the majority of which is being spent on funding a ‘catch and control’ team to target the worst offenders. Operation Kudos is under way to tackle increases in crime associated with the dark nights and began with timer switches being distributed.

The meeting of the Council’s safer and stronger communities improvement committee will be at City Hall, Bradford, next Thursday at 5.15pm.