North Yorkshire Police has urged residents in Skipton to lock their doors following a spate of opportunistic burglaries.
Sergeant Paul Evans gave a presentation at Skipton’s annual meeting at the town hall on Thursday evening.
Whilst he emphasised that Craven remains one of the safest places to live in the country, he said it was “concerning” that burglary levels have risen since last year with the cost-of-living crisis a possible reason behind the trend.
He said: “A lot of people are complacent in Skipton, some properties are broken into when people have forgotten to lock the front door. That appeal is to everybody to lock their doors. We’d reduce the figures futures greatly if this happened more.”
He added: “The safest place in the country is still Craven, so we must put it into context.”
Sgt Evans said the police often rely on home security systems like cameras which can help in a prosecution. He said: “We have suspects and then things like Ring doorbells help a lot. They are not the most genius of criminals in Skipton so the cameras give us a lot.”
The officer also said there had been 519 reports of anti-social behaviour in Skipton over the last year with many of these disputes between neighbours that police tried to resolve.
He also said there had been 60 reports of hate crimes in the town.
A hate crime is any incident where someone is assaulted or verbally abused because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or if they are transgender.
A council report published last month said there has been a 10% rise in reported hate crimes since last year across North Yorkshire with the ongoing Gaza war fuelling religious tensions.
The police say hate crimes in North Yorkshire most typically occur between midnight and 4am.
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