CAR crime in Darlington town centre car parks has reached an all-time low, according to new figures.

For the first three months of this year, the statistics reveal only two incidents have been reported in the car parks covered by the borough council's closed circuit television system (CCTV).

The cameras provide 24-hour coverage of town centre car parks and live pictures are relayed to the town hall, where they are monitored by control room staff.

The investment in the scheme so far is £1.5m, with a total of 91 cameras now operating in key areas throughout the town.

The system was installed in 1994 at a cost of £750,000 - and 374 incidents were recorded in that year.

Paul Wildsmith, the council's director of corporate services, said: "One of the aims of the council's CCTV system was to rid the town's car parks of vehicle crime and these figures suggest that goal has been achieved.

"Car park users can rest assured we will make every effort to maintain this level of success."

More than 3,000 arrests have been made with the help of Darlington's town centre CCTV system since it was installed.

The latest news comes just after Darlington police revealed their crime figures for the past financial year.

Although there was an overall 3.6 per cent rise in crime, cases of thefts of and from motor vehicles were considerably down.

Thefts of motor vehicles fell by 2.8 per cent to 518 offences, with thefts from motor vehicles dropping by 18 per cent.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Reddick welcomed the figures and said the pressure would be kept up.

"There are a lot of things which accounted for this. We are a lot more effective now at using the National Intelligence Model to target the people we know are the prolific criminals in the town area," he said.