Crime is down in Waveney

A SENIOR police chief has this week hailed a district-wide drop in crime.

The Journal can today reveal that new figures show that crime in Waveney is currently down for the period between April 1 to November 30 by 3.5pc.

This equates to a year-on-year decrease of 208 offences - from 5,867 recorded offences for the same period last year to 5,659 this year.

Earlier this year, crime figures also showed a drop in overall incidents in Waveney, which were down by 2.2pc in 2008/9 in comparison to 2007/8 - so there has been a marked improvement once more in the past six months.

With key crime areas of concern seeing total serious violent and sexual offences as being down by 1pc for the district, robberies are also down by 6pc.

There has been an increase in the number of house burglaries - which has been Lowestoft police's central focus for most of the year - but criminal damage has dropped markedly by 3pc.

Breaking the figures down into the five Safer Neighbourhood Team areas, there has been a major 5.9pc fall in the largest Lowestoft Central SNT area for total recorded crime (2,363 crimes in 2008/9 opposed to 2,224 crimes in 2009/10).

The other figures are as follows:

A 3.9pc fall in the Lowestoft North SNT area (1,271 crimes in 2008/9 opposed to 1,221 crimes in 2009/10).

A 0.7 fall in the Lowestoft South SNT area (1,210 crimes in 2008/9 opposed to 1,202 crimes in 2009/10).

A 4.8pc increase in the Beccles and Bungay SNT area (568 crimes in 2008/9 opposed to 595 crimes in 2009/10).

A massive 18.9pc fall in the Southwold and Halesworth SNT (381 crimes in 2008/9 opposed to 309 crimes in 2009/10).

Praising his officers' work and saluting 'a real team effort,' Waveney's District Commander Chief Inspector Paul Sharp - who is based in Lowestoft, reflected on the latest pleasing figures.

'Overall, we are pleased with the current situation and how we are performing, but we can't rest on our laurels as crime can change quite regularly,' Chief Insp Sharp said.