POLICE chiefs have welcomed a significant fall in violent crime across County Durham and Darlington.

Area commander for the north, Chief Superintendent Trevor Watson has attributed the drop mainly to the targeting of problems arising from night-time economies.

Violent crime against people dropped by more than 12 per cent from a reported 8,583 incidents in 2007-08, to 7,527 in 2008-09.

The figures come as Durham Police revealed the total number of offences – 45,326 – represents a five per cent drop compared with the 47,750 recorded in 2007-08.

This is the lowest figure for Durham Constabulary since new counting rules were introduced for all forces in 2002.

Chief Supt Watson said: “It is in the area of the less serious types of assault where we have seen a significant decrease.

“This follows a lot of effort to deal with the types of assault associated with nighttime economies.

“Two years ago we developed a Night Safe Strategy looking at putting a series of initiatives into town centres with vibrant night-time economies – including Durham City, Bishop Auckland, Consett and Chester-le-Street.

“Among these have been the introduction of polycarbonate glasses, taxi marshals and other initiatives to make town centres safer – particularly over weekends.”

In Durham City, police have introduced the nationally-accredited Best Bar None scheme aimed at encouraging licensees to improve operating standards.

Meanwhile, during the same periods, thefts of motors tumbled by 15 per cent.

There was also a decrease in cases of criminal damage – down by 10.9 per cent.

Other falls were recorded in sexual offences, thefts from vehicles and cases of fraud or forgery.

The one major exception was house burglaries, of which there were an additional 261 – up from 2,350 to 2,611.

Analysis of the offences revealed that more than 200 were break-ins at empty properties and 170 were carried out with the intention of stealing the owner’s car keys, often by pushing an object through the letterbox to hook the keys.

To try to buck the trend a series of crime prevention campaigns have been launched.

Although not included on the recordable offences, police chiefs were also pleased to see that reported incidents of anti-social behaviour by youths fell by more than 12 per cent, from 25,507 to 22,361 in the last year.