Bike thefts in Midlands fall by more than 1,300
About 1,300 fewer bike thefts have been reported to the police in the Midlands over the last year compared to the year before, new figures have shown.
Police forces in the West Midlands, Staffordshire, and West Mercia saw a total of 3,689 reports between June last year and this year.
The number is down from a total of 5,012 bike thefts across the areas for 2018 to 2019, according to figures from the Economic Policy Centre.
It comes after figures showed a decline in the number of burglaries across the Black Country due to lockdown – with bicycle thefts following a similar pattern.
Nationally approximately 19,000 fewer incidents of bicycle theft were reported – marking an overall 21 per cent fall, the figures collated by UK CrimeStats revealed. And despite a rise of 6,870 reported thefts in June, up from 5,700 in May, the long-term trend has been falling – with a monthly average of 5,915 over the past year, down from 7,510 between 2018 to 2019.
In Staffordshire, police recorded a total of 679 offences for the crime over the last year, down from 1,068 in 2018 to 2019. West Midlands Police had 2,159 reports for the crime over the last year, down from 2,874 in 2018 to 2019.
And West Mercia Police recorded a total of 851 bike thefts over the past year, down from 1,070 thefts in 2018 to 2019.
It means each force stands in the top 15 for the lowest crime rates out of 43 police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Greg Wilson, founder of Quotezone.co.uk which carried out the research, said: “It’s really positive to see such a significant drop in the number of bike thefts, especially when bike sales have spiked due to the pandemic and the subsequent push for people to get fit and lose weight.”
