NORTH Yorkshire remains the lowest crime area in England and Wales despite a nine per cent rise in recorded offences.

This was confirmed in the Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) “Crime in England and Wales, year ending June 2018” bulletin, published on Thursday.

It shows there were a total of 40,782 crimes in North Yorkshire during the 12-month period, giving a crime rate of 49.7 per 1,000 of the population.

The nine per cent local increase is below the national average crime increase of ten per cent.

Burglary, bike theft, and theft from the person were among the crimes that decreased in the county.

Offences that saw an increase in the year up to June 2018 included drug crimes, robbery, violence against the person and shoplifting.

The county’s overall crime rate is the lowest nationally, and is significantly lower than the average of 84.7 per 1,000 across England and Wales.

Chief Constable Lisa Winward said: “Today’s figures show North Yorkshire remains the lowest crime area in England and Wales.

“There has been an increase in recorded offences, but this is also slightly lower than the national average.

“Here in North Yorkshire we’ve been looking closely at how we record crime and have recently introduced a range of new measures to ensure we are detecting and investigating offences more effectively. “This work is ongoing, and while it will naturally influence the county’s crime levels, it is the right thing to do to ensure victims continue to feel confident about reporting offences to us.”

Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire, welcomed the overall picture and wanted to reassure residents that some of the rises were due to changes in the recording of certain crimes.

She said: “While any rise gives cause concern, I want to also set out that we are currently going through a process of ensuring all crimes that do take place are properly recorded – by ensuring the police log every offence in the right way, as well as complying with national changes which require more crime to be recorded.

“I know this will lead to an increase in recorded crime, and I want to be clear that I expect that figure to continue to rise as we go through this vital process.

“I want to reassure residents that, in many cases, we are not seeing more crime, we are just becoming better at recording it.”