A THIRD fewer house burglaries were committed across Darlington last month compared to the same time last year, with figures expected to drop still further.

Police believe a number of campaigns and approaches have helped to limit the number of homes burgled during the past six weeks to less than one a day.

Last month, there were 29 house burglaries across the town, which represented a reduction of 35 per cent compared to the same time last year.

This month's figures show an even greater fall. There have been only 11 homes reported to have been burgled during the first two weeks of the month. In November last year, there were 89 during the month.

Chief Inspector Chris Reeves, of Darlington police, said he was delighted with the results and put it down to a number of factors, particularly the force's Winter Nights campaign. He said that last year there was a particular problem with house burglaries in the run-up to Christmas and during the New Year, when a team of burglars committed a number of offences.

He said they were caught, arrested and are still in prison.

Mr Reeves added: "We have a burglary officer who reviews every single burglary and looks for all the possible investigation routes. We are robust about how we chase them up. We are on top of the investigations and make best of any forensic evidence.

"One of our other initiatives includes a rat-trap house. With it being the time of year that the nights are darker, burglars want to tackle houses that are empty. They often don't want to rifle through a house, which is occupied because the punishment is far greater.

"They look for houses that are empty. That is tricky a lot of the year, but when a house is in darkness in the early evening there is a sporting chance that no one will be in.

"By having the rat-trap house, we want the criminal fraternity to have an element of doubt that an empty house could be a sting or a target.We want them to be frightened.

"There has also been excellent work done with the Winter Nights campaign. Darlington was the first in the force area to launch the campaign.

The safer neighbourhood unit led by Sergeant Louise Guest has done some excellent work."

The Winter Nights campaign includes roadshows and public information such as using alarms and light timers.