Crime has fallen significantly across Lowestoft and Southwold, new figures have revealed this week.

And the county-wide picture has seen crime falling in Suffolk for the seventh consecutive year – while the number of solved crimes has increased.

The end of year figures released by Suffolk Police show there were 40,009 crimes recorded in the county from April 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013 – 5,632 fewer crimes than the same period last year.

Locally, crime across Lowestoft has fallen by more than 950 incidents in the past year.

In the Lowestoft North Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT) areas, which covers all wards north of Lake Lothing, Bascule bridge and Oulton Broad with villages including Corton, Blundeston and Lound, total crime is down by 15pc. In the Lowestoft South SNT area, covering down to Kessingland and out to Carlton Colville, it has fallen by 14pc.

A police spokesman said this 'equates to a total of 959 fewer crimes' for the Lowestoft area. 'The total number of offences for Lowestoft was 5,541 – down from 6,500 the previous year,' the spokesman said.

'In Halesworth and Southwold crime was down by 7.9pc (or 43 offences) at 499 compared to 542 last year and this equates to less than two crimes a day across both towns and surrounding parishes.'

With substantial falls in many of the key crime categories, house burglaries – a priority for police – are up by just two offences. Incidents of violence against the person has fallen by 19pc in north Lowestoft and 9pc in south Lowestoft.

Sexual offences are down 37pc in the north (32 fewer offences) and 20pc (10 fewer offences) in the south of the town. Robberies are down 22pc in north Lowestoft and by 5.9pc in the south (equating to ten fewer offences overall). Vehicle crime (theft from, theft of and vehicle interference) is down by 26pc in both areas of town – 86 fewer offences across the whole town, while criminal damage is down by 24pc or 178 fewer offences in north Lowestoft and 20pc or 116 offences in the south.

Across Suffolk, the data also revealed almost a third – 32.5pc – of all crime was solved, with 1,644 more solved crimes than last year.

Det Insp Darrell Skuse said: 'While we are pleased to have seen such substantial falls in crime across the board in Lowestoft this year, we are conscious that more still needs to be done and that it will be hard to achieve continuing reductions in the number of offences.

'The team at Lowestoft has worked hard over the past year and their work has seen a number of burglars locked up, those involved in the supply of drugs being jailed and others dealt with for offences.

'More than 1,000 arrests have been made during the course of the year and we will continue to actively target the minority responsible for crime in our town.'