THE cost of rural crime in County Durham fell by almost 30 per cent in 2021 to £260,000, according to NFU Mutual.
County Durham remains one of few forces nationally to see a reduction in rural crime claims of agricultural vehicles machinery and livestock thefts. But NFU Mutual has warned the situation nationally could worsen over the next 12 months with a 40 per cent increase in rural theft reported across the UK in the first three months of this year.
Over the past 12 months, County Durham and Darlington Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen has introduced two new Community Speedwatch vans for rural areas with onboard technology to clock multiple speeding motorists - thanks to funding from Teesdale Action Partnership. She has also contributed a grant of £7,500 towards the purchase of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to track the movement of offenders and stolen machinery through the county and is considering the use of drones to collect intelligence to keep rural communities safe.
Insp Ed Turner, of Barnard Castle Police, said: “It is extremely encouraging that Durham has again bucked the national trend and has recorded a fall in reported crime in our rural areas.
“A significant part of that success can be attributed to the support we receive from our rural communities themselves and the work we do in partnership with them.
“No one knows our rural communities better than the residents who live and work there, so we continue to build on that knowledge and experience in our fight against rural crime. There is always more we can do to protect those who live and work in rural parts of the force and we will continue to do everything in our power to do so.”
Ms Allen is keen to expand the reach and uptake of community schemes such as Rural Watch to reduce opportunities for rural crime.
Between 2020-21 and 2021-2022, there was a 26 per cent increase in people signing up to Rural Watch (now 1,568 people) while 5,000 residents signed up to a WhatsApp group in the county sharing intelligence and prevention measures. In a further scheme backed, the police are installing a tracker on every new replacement quad bike to limit the opportunity for theft.
The NFU Mutual report said farm vehicles remained a top target for criminals.
