CUMBRIA Police have revealed crime in the county has been cut by more than eight per cent over the current financial year.

It comes after the Constabulary introduced a range of measures over the last 18 months to improve service to the public.

The measures included implementing a rural crime team, dedicated to tackling rural offences; the continued rollout of community beat officers; the launch of a new, dedicated roads policing unit and a force restructure and increased focus on issues such as meeting response times.

Other positive results included 96.5 per cent of 999 being answered within 10 seconds last months, 85.7 per cent of convictions in domestic abuse cases and 81.3 per cent of convictions in cases involving violence against women in girls at court – the third best in the country.

Police say offences that cause real concern in communities including burglary, violence, public disorder and criminal damage to property are all down significantly.

Arrests, stop-searches and offences resulting in a positive outcome have all gone up.

Chief Constable Rob Carden said: “Cumbria is currently one of the top performing forces in the country and this is due to the hard work and professionalism of our officers and staff who are doing their utmost to deliver an outstanding police service to keep Cumbria safe.

“I am extremely proud of what the force is achieving, and I am delighted with the improvements we have achieved in key areas such as proactivity, response to calls, standards of investigation, victim care and criminal justice outcomes.

“We are doing our best to protect vulnerable people, with encouraging results at court in cases involving domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.

“The most important result in this is that the public of Cumbria are receiving a continually improving service, meaning more suspects are being arrested and crime is going down.”

Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Peter McCall, said: “Cumbria has consistently been one of the safest counties to live across England and Wales and we are determined to keep it that way.

“Our aim is to make sure the county is as safe as possible for everyone who lives in, works in and visits Cumbria.

“We are now starting to see the effect of the additional officers and resource which we have built up over the last five years with more officers on the streets, on our roads and in our rural communities.

“This is also a clear message to any criminals looking to come into the county and commit a crime, that Cumbria is not a soft touch from crime and you will be relentlessly pursued and brought to justice.”