REPORTS of race attacks in Darlington have gone up by 300 per cent in the last three years, it has been revealed.

Although the town has the highest concentration of ethnic minorities in County Durham, it is still only around two per cent of the 101,000 population.

However, it is forecast that the number of ethnic minority people living in Darlington will have increased to six per cent by the time of the next census.

It is the fact that the black community is relatively small in the town that leaves the ethnic minority residents vulnerable to racial attacks and abuse.

Andy Errington, head of Darlington's youth offending and community safety service, said that following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, steps had been taken to encourage black people to report racially motivated incidents.

He said: "Since then the amount of race related reports to police in the town have increased by about 300 per cent."

Darlington Borough Council this week approved plans to spend £38,600 on appointing a community safety adviser for young black people in the town.

A report by Paul Wildsmith, director of corporate services, said: "An objective of Darlington's Crime and Disorder strategy is to ensure that our organisations and structures treat all people equally and that criminal and anti-social behaviour motivated by discrimination is challenged and reduced.

"The aim of the community safety adviser would be to liaise with different ethnic minority groups to determine their community safety issues and map their needs.

"The worker would focus upon ethnic minority young people within the community and their views and issues with regard to crime and disorder."

It is hoped that the worker would mean there would be a better understanding of community safety issues within the ethnic minority community.

Helen Atwell of Darlington Racial Equality Council said the figures of race related reports to police had increased from around 30 three years ago to 178 last year.

She said: "There are still more reports coming through. I would attribute the rise to more awareness on the part of the police that some crimes which would normally have been recorded as criminal damage or whatever, are now being recognised as racially motivated.

"It is also due to increased trust in the police from the minority community. I don't think the actual amount of racial incidents have increased.

"We surveyed 100 ethnic minority people locally, and 88 per cent of them said they had been subject to some sort of racial criminal behaviour."