A new analysis of crime figures has revealed that shoplifting is on the rise in York.
York has the seventh highest shoplifting rate out of the 17 districts in Yorkshire, in terms of the number of incidents as a percentage of the population.
That’s one shop theft per 137 people in the city.
Altogether there were 1,514 reported incidents in 2016. This was up 2.9% on the 2015 figure of 1,472, according to the new study by LoveMyVouchers.co.uk.
But that is better than the national average with shop theft across England and Wales having increased by 7.6%.
Theft hotspots
The survey also uncovered the places in York which suffered most from shoplifting.
Unsurprisingly considering its high footfall, one of these was York’s busiest shopping street Coney Street.
The other locations with the highest number of shoplifting incidents are:
- the York Designer Outlet
- shops around Church Lane
- Asda at Monks Cross
- and Parliament Street.
When weighted by population, Doncaster had the highest shoplifting levels in Yorkshire, followed by Scarborough, and Wakefield.
Other shoplifting hotpots in Yorkshire included the Trinity Leeds Shopping Centre, Frenchgate Shopping Centre in Doncaster, and Kirkgate Shopping Centre in Bradford.
West Yorkshire Police handled a total of 17K reports during 2016, South Yorkshire Police received 11.8K reports and North Yorkshire just 4.1K reports.
The total figure of 33,149 for Yorkshire in 2016 was up 8.3% on the previous year.
Higher prices
Outside of Westminster in the heart of London’s shopping district, the area with the highest shoplifting rate was Middlesbrough, at 1.56%.
Retail crime cost the industry £613m in 2014/2015. Linda Firth from LoveMyVouchers.co.uk said: “Shoplifting doesn’t just affect the retailers, it also affects consumers as the losses are typically recouped through higher retail prices.
“With such a high portion of the population already struggling to make ends meet, the affect of increasing retail prices to account for the costs of shoplifting could have a significant impact on budgets.”