A quarter of the country’s 20 worst postcode hotspots for home burglary insurance claims are in the Bradford district, a survey revealed today.

And the BD12 area, which covers Wyke, Low Moor and Oakenshaw, has the second highest claims rate in the country, according to analysis of 3.49 million applications for home insurance quotes made between December 2011 and the end of November 2012.

The other Bradford postcodes which appear in the list are BD10 (Eccleshill, Idle, Thackley and Greengates), BD17 (Baildon), BD18 (Shipley) and BD6 (Buttershaw and Wibsey).

The Leeds postcode LS28 (Pudsey, Calverley and Farsley) is also named among the the burglary hotspot areas.

The only area that fares worse than Bradford is London, which has seven of the top 20 hotspots.

The results of the study by MoneySupermarket comes as latest crime figures published by the Home Office show that domestic burglary rates in West Yorkshire, although decreasing significantly, remain above the national average.

In response, West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson pledged that tackling burglaries will be a central plank of his first policing plans.

The Home Office figures released yesterday show overall crime has dropped by nine per cent in West Yorkshire from September 2011 to 2012.

There were 17,929 fewer victims of crime, burglary of dwellings was down by 27 per cent and vehicle crime dropped by 12 per cent.

But despite a significant decrease in burglaries, down by 18 per cent overall when non-dwelling offences are included, the rate is still higher than the national average with 13 burglaries per 1,000 population compared to a national average of nine per 1,000 population.

Mr Burns-Williamson, said last night: “I welcome today’s figures and am pleased to see that West Yorkshire Police continues to perform well in difficult times with crime falling at a faster level on average in the force area when compared to other areas in England and Wales. It is particularly good to see that there has been less violent crime overall.

“I will be including burglary as a priority in the Police and Crime Plan 2013/14 and to make sure people in West Yorkshire feel safer and are safer in their communities.

“I intend to raise my concerns about burglary levels with the Chief Constable and look at ways of working to continue to drive burglary down and move us much closer to the national average.”

Directly responding to the burglary hotspots survey of which Bradford and Leeds postcodes make up ten of the 20 worst areas, Mr Burns-Williamson said: “Obviously I recognise that a lot of work still to do with regards to driving down that in future.

“Overall it is about 18,000 fewer victims of crime and vehilce crime is down 12 per cent.

“There are encouraging reductions in crime but we should recognise that.

“I am determined to work with the Chief Constable on the Policing Plan with a firm focus on crime reduction to ensure all areas of West Yorkshire are as safe as possible.”

Councillor Imran Hussain, the deputy leader of Bradford Council and its safer and stronger communities portfolio holder, said: “There are areas in the district where burglary is a problem.

“It remains a priority for the Community Safety Partnership and has been for a number of years. It has come down in the past few years, and 25 per cent in the last year.

“But we continue to work with police to treat burglary as a priority concern.”

l Five candidiates have been shortlisted for the post of Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, months after Sir Norman Bettison resigned amid criticism of the role he played in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.

Mr Burns-Williamson said that he had identified five people with “very good qualities” for the high-profile role.

Interviews are due to take place at the end of this month after the shortlisting process was completed this week.