THE West Midlands has seen an 82 per cent rise in robberies in just three years, it has been revealed.

Between March 2016 and June 2019 the number of individual incidents rose from 4,900 to 8,918 across the region, despite the force’s  publicly stated aim to reduce this figure.

And the number of burglaries across the West Midlands during the same period has also risen, with a 28 per cent increase seeing the figure rise from 19,256 incidents to 28,648.

The figures for robberies equate to 3.1 per 1,000 population within the West Midlands, with Birmingham having a substantially higher robbery rate than the average at 4.3 per 1,000 population.

However the growth in robberies between year ending March 2016 and year ending March 2019 was highest in Coventry and Walsall – in Coventry it has risen by a whopping 121 per cent, while Walsall has seen a 85 per cent rise.

Sandwell, Birmingham and Solihull had higher burglary rates than the average of 10 per 1,000 population, with figures of 11.1, 10.6 and 10.1 offences per 1,000 population respectively.

And the growth in burglaries over this period has been highest in Birmingham West, with a 62 per cent rise in incidents.

The figures were revealed at the force’s Strategic Policing and Crime Board, with the force failing to achieve its goal of seeing a reduction in both burglaries and robberies.

However, speaking at the meeting, Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe said that there has been some encouraging news in regards to the figures in recent months.

“There is some good news in terms of burglaries,” she said.

“So whilst the long term picture is that burglaries have been going up, we’ve made some real inroads this year in reducing burglaries and bringing offenders to justice. And even since we published this report our reductions have increased further.

“So the report states that there’s been a 10.3 per cent reduction in residential burglary – that has now gone even further to 16.6 per cent reduction in residential burglary, so that’s 2,200 fewer victims this year.

“And additionally we have the highest charge/summons rate for all burglary and residential burglary in comparison with most similar forces.

“Robbery remains challenging for us. Whilst we record significantly higher levels of robbery than our most similar forces, our charge rate is at least comparable. So we are making significant inroads.

“And we’ve run a number of quite focussed operations. So our city centre team are really knowledgeable about our persistent and prolific offenders in this space, particularly the groups of offenders who will target young people leaving nightclubs when they are a bit worse for wear, might be heading to the cash point, walking off down a darkened, poorly lit road looking for a taxi – they’re very vulnerable.

“So we’ve done lots of work to ensure that actually, those teams that know them well, who are not necessarily involved in the night-time economy world, they are staffing it.”