POLICE detection rates for vehicle crime and burglaries in Congleton rose for the last three months of 2000.

Figures show there were 939 recorded crimes in the town between October and December.

That equates to 10 for every 1,000 people, and police detected 27 per cent of the total, a figure virtually unchanged for 18 months.

Congleton suffered from 102 recorded burglaries in the last quarter of 2000, for which the detection rate was 30 per cent, compared with 19 per cent for the previous three months.

Vehicle crime totalled 208 between October and December, and the detection rate was just nine per cent, compared with four per cent for July to September.