Northumbria Police

Northumbria is a large and varied county, with major cities, towns, coastal areas. It also has a lot of rural areas, which is reflected in the hotspots on the map. 

As you'd expect, it's the large cities that come out worst with NE1 (central Newcastle) and SR1 (central Sunderland) taking the first two hotspots. It should be noted, however, that there's a big difference between the two cities. NE1 has a much higher car crime rate (1182 car crimes per 10,000 cars) than SR1 (467 car crimes per 10,000 cars). Why are they at the top of the table? It's the same story as the rest of England & Wales: high concentrations of people and a large number of cars visiting the cities (rather than being registered there).

Outside of the cities, there are some significant hotspots out towards the coast, with Wallsend, South Shields, Tynemouth, Whitley Bay and Blyth all seeing higher levels of crime.

Elsewhere in Northumbria, we see some of the lowest crime rates anywhere in the country. NE45 - Corbridge -is the lowest of these, seeing just eight crimes per 10,000. It's just 20 miles from NE1, which has the area's highest car crime rate.

In 2013 Northumbria Police has specifically warned of car crime in Wallsend (which has seen a number of items such as laptops, mobile phones, bags and tools were stolen from cars), thefts from vans in North Tyneside and break-ins to cars in Newcastle.

See also: Top 10 Cars Stolen to order / Top 10 Most Stolen Cars / Crime homepage