A North East town has the highest number arson incidents per head  in the country, with fires costing some £1m this year, a meeting has heard.

Richard Brown, Stockton district manager for Cleveland Fire Brigade, said the cost of deliberate fires had “practically doubled” this year from more than £500,000. He also asked the Safer Stockton Partnership for its help with the growing problem of torched cars.

He told the meeting: “We have seen a slight increase on the five-year average for deliberate fires, a four per cent increase. We’re actually the highest in England per 100,000 of population for deliberate fires.

“Where we can we’re targeting our hotspot areas and anything like rubbish removal, reporting that to Stockton Borough Council. We’re utilising our community liaison officers for patrols, we have community skips which people can put stuff in, which have varying degrees of success, a sealed skip.

“We have a real issue in Stockton district and in Cleveland county with deliberate vehicle fires. It’s quite a challenging one to get ahead of sometimes.

“On the five-year average we’ve had a 58 per cent increase in deliberate vehicle fires. We jointly investigate deliberate fires through Cleveland Police with a fast turnaround.

“Any hotspot areas we try to have more of a presence there through the day and the night, targeting things like community safety activity and travelling back through these areas. There is potentially some contradictory evidence that says it can entice certain members of the population to start fires and do more crime. We’ve seen it in terms of the positive presence for that area.

“We’re definitely open to any offers or ideas from the group in terms of how we could potentially do something different. It is a real challenge for the district.”

He said they had received Home Office statistics about the economic cost and disruption caused by deliberate fires, adding: “Last year the economic cost to the district was £549,455. It’s practically doubled this year.

“We’re open to some creative ideas around being a little bit more pro-active. What we’re finding is it’s very difficult to track in terms of when they’re going to happen.

“We are quite reactive to it and the stats bear it out, we’ve seen such a hike in it. We know there’s quite a lot of organised crime going on, drug-related and retribution-type crime.”

Chief Inspector Dan Heron from Cleveland Police said: “I think it’s really important to understand why these fires happen. Is it abandoned vehicles, is it vehicles used in crime, is it abandoned buildings, and can we break that causation?

“The next equally critical point is how is it happening, is it petrol, throwing matches in or whatever. Once we understand those two elements we can put some intervention points in as a collective.”

Stockton district commander Superintendent John Wrintmore said: “Our problem-solving approach to anything like this would be to start with analysing the data, hotspot areas, potential suspects, to really focus down our attention and give it support with any data you need, to give you the problem-solving process and build up a plan from that.”

Police statistics showed a mixed picture, with arson dropping nine per cent for July 2023 to June 2024 compared to the previous year. However, a snapshot of June 2024 showed 16 arson offences compared to 11 in June 2023.

Mr Brown said there had been a 25 per cent reduction in accidental fires in the home as crews were visiting homes, fitting smoke alarms and signposting people to safeguarding. He added: “Cleveland is a really challenging county in terms of social and health inequalities so we try to get our key messages to everybody where we can.”

He said 43 per cent of occupants in these fires were aged 26 to 35, and 43 per cent of the fires happened in the kitchen. Distraction, potentially linked to alcohol and drug consumption, tended to be a cause.

He also spoke of phone chargers and lithium batteries which were covered in home safety messages, discouraging people from charging phones and other devices or putting on washing machines at night. He added: “We don’t have a huge amount of these incidents in the district. It’s an emerging risk for the fire brigade because more people have them.”

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Sharon Cooney, head of community safety, said work was being planned for the lead-up to Bonfire Night, adding: “Last year we did a joint operation with police, with fire, with other partners. We did a lot of work together.

“We’ve got the same plan, bringing the drones out, gathering intelligence, looking where the waste accumulations are, working with Care For Your Area. All of that’s in train.”

Free safer homes visits can be booked here or by calling 01429 874063.