A POLICE force is stepping up its campaign to encourage residents to stop making life easy for burglars.

Cleveland police officers are taking to the streets to get across their message that house windows and doors let in crooks as well as draughts to dispel the summer heat.

The crime prevention organisation, Safe in Tees Valley, is already running a series of warning messages on three local radio stations.

Now, Cleveland Police are to tow a trailer round Middlesbrough and its housing estates.

Emblazoned on the hoarding will be the warning: "Shut it and lock it: don't give burglars the opportunity.''

Walk-in burglaries account for half of all house break-ins in some areas of the town.

Sergeant Glynn Bass, from Middlesbrough Crime Reduction Unit, said: "In the last two years, Middlesbrough police have recorded the lowest house burglary figures on record. Our aim is to reduce these even further, and residents have a crucial part to play in whether we achieve this.

"Across Middlesbrough, one in three house burglary entries are through open doors or windows.

"In some parts it is as high as two in three. These crimes are all avoidable, and we hope residents see this as a hard- hitting way of getting our message across.''

On average, preventable walk-in thefts account for 21 per cent of all household burglaries in the area - central Middlesbrough being the worst hit.