9.11.1 Some 28 of the 42 district and unitary authorities in the South West region (as of 2009/10, the time period when the data in this chapter is mostly drawn from) are classified by the Government as ‘predominantly rural’ (see Defra's classification of Local Authorities), encompassing 55% of the population, while another two areas are classified as ‘significantly rural’ (encompassing 5% of the population), leaving twelve classified as ‘predominantly ubran' (encompassing 39% of the population). This inevitably impacts on the crime picture in the South West, with the BCS showing that crime generally tends to affect urban and rural areas differently. (For example the 2009/10 BCS found that in England and Wales overall the risk of being a victim of antisocial behaviour was 7% in rural areas compared with 16% in urban areas.) Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are notable geographic variations in both volume and patterns of crime across the South West.
9.11.2 In 2009/10, 54% of all recorded crime committed in the South West occurred in local authority areas which were classified as ‘predominantly urban’ (despite these only containing 39% of the region’s population). In the region, 16% of all recorded crime was committed in Bristol and a further 6% in Plymouth, such that these two cities together accounted for over a fifth of all recorded crime in the region. A further eight local authority areas each individually accounted for at least 3% of the region’s total of recorded crime, the most notable of which being South Gloucestershire, Bournemouth, and Swindon which each accounted for approximately 5%.
9.11.3 In contrast to the ‘predominantly urban’ areas, where the proportion of the region’s recorded crime in 2009/10 was greater than the proportion of the region’s population, the reverse was true in the areas classified as predominantly rural’. Just 41% of the recorded crime in the region was in these areas, despite their accounting for 56% of the region’s population. The two remaining local authorities that fall between these categories (Bath and North East Somerset and Taunton Deane, which are classified as ‘significantly rural’) accounted for a proportion of recorded crime in line with their population (5% of the region’s recorded crime in 2009/10, compared to 6% of the region’s population).
Figure 9.11.1 Total Recorded Crime in the South West 2009/10, split into Urban
and Rural areas, percentages
