POLICE have hailed neighbourhood policing as one of the key reasons behind a predicted 10.7 per cent fall in crime.

Senior officers in County Durham said the force logged just over 44,000 offences between last April and the end of February and that by the end of the month the total will be around 49,000 - 5,000 less than the total for 2006-07.

The force's statistical specialists have forecast falls in most of the major categories of offending.

House burglaries are expected to drop by seven per cent, violent crime by 12 per cent, robberies by 27 per cent, vehicle crime by 18 per cent, criminal damage by 11 per cent, and forgeries by 20 per cent.

Sexual offending is the one area where an increase is anticipated - a six per cent rise that would equate to 31 offences.

Some of the largest centres of population will see big falls in crime. It is predicted Darlington's total will be down by 17 per cent, Peterlee's by 18 per cent, Stanley's by 20 per cent and Spennymoor's by 17 per cent.

Chief Constable Jon Stoddart said the predicted figures confirmed County Durham as one of the safest counties in the country.

The reduction had been produced by effective partnership working, particularly crime and disorder partnerships, he said.

"One of the major influencing factors has been the identification of offending hot-spots through the extended use of intelligence gathering. That has allowed partnerships to target both priority offences and offenders.'' Neighbourhood policing teams were playing an increasingly important role, particularly where they adopted problem-solving projects.

"The reorganisation of the force has created different working structures that allow both uniformed officers and detectives to operate within the neighbourhood teams," he said.

"By co-ordinating resources and effort in this way we are proving more effective."

He added that the force has led the way in making the investigative process more professional, as officers are required to demonstrate their investigative competence by collating portfolios of evidence.

"Furthermore we have introduced crime investigation processes with an emphasis on detecting today's crime today," he said.

Additionally the force had enhanced its forensic investigation capabilities by ensuring crime scene investigators were deployed to locations where there was real potential for recovering key evidence