NORTH Ayrshire towns are amongst the most dangerous to live in Scotland, new data has revealed.

The Scottish Government this week published data relating to recorded crime throughout the country throughout the most recent financial year, 2023-24.

This revealed a wide range of national statistics, as well as crime data referring to local council areas.

This showed that, per 10,000 population in North Ayrshire, 579 crimes were recorded by Police Scotland.

While not an exact measure of all criminal activity, as not all is reported to police, this helps provide an accurate measure of activity faced in each county.

This placed North Ayrshire above the national average for crime per head population, with the figure the sixth highest of any locality in Scotland.

When removing city based councils - Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen - North Ayrshire rises to the second highest crime rate per 10,000 population. 

Only West Dunbartonshire's total of 672 eclipses the total crime recorded by this measure in North Ayrshire.

Looking at the figures in more detail, statistics are broken down into the most common types of crime - and offences.

The term “crime” is generally used for the more serious criminal acts. The less serious are called “offences”.

The number of crimes committed North Ayrshire wide his risen by 13 per cent in the last financial year - from 6,852 to 7,732.

The number is also significantly higher than the figures from neighbouring South Ayrshire - 5,607 - and East Ayrshire - 6,570.

The most common type of crime committed in the county was crimes of dishonesty, with almost a third of all recorded data - 2,609 - falling within this category.

Of crimes of dishonesty, the most commonly recorded sub-category was shoplifting, with police documenting over 1,000 offences of this nature locally.

This has seen a significant increase in the past year, rising by over a quarter from 2022-23.

The next most common crime group was non-sexual crimes of violence, with nearly 2,000 crimes recorded in the county - with common assault the most common recorded in this category with 1,691.

Other categories which contributed to the overall crime total were: sexual crimes (334 recorded); damage and reckless behaviour (1,119 recorded); and crimes against society (1,714 recorded).

Of these categories, only reckless behaviour saw a slight reduction - of two per cent - year on year.

Looking at offences recorded in North Ayrshire, these also rose from last year to 4,565, an overall increase of six per cent.

This figure is the highest seen in the county since the 2016-17 financial year.

The most common category of offence was road traffic offences, with 2,878 of the total falling within this section.

Malicious offences - 283 - and antisocial offences - 1,404 - made up the remaining total of recorded offences locally - with both seeing a rise since last year.

However, there was a positive increase locally on the percentage of crimes cleared up by police, meaning the recording of crimes led to matters being taken to court.

A total of 61.3 per cent of crimes were cleared up in the 2023-24 financial year, the highest figure in over a decade.

The number of offences cleared up has also increased on last year, though remains more than ten per cent below the figures seen 10 years ago.