Following a spate of burglaries at the beginning of the year a police campaign to blitz the area with high visibility patrols has had the desired affect.
From 1st January to 26th January there were sixteen homes burgled in the Knutsford area, some were in the town centre whilst other incidents occurred in rural areas, including Mobberley and High Legh.
Police responded with more high visibility patrols and unmarked patrols in efforts to reassure people and deter would be thieves. In response to the rise in burglaries, road policing patrols defaulted to Knutsford to stop any suspicious vehicles or people, and to be in a position to react quickly to incidents, which seems to have done the trick.
Inspector Steve Griffiths told knutsford.com "I think we sent the message out to criminals that we are out there and we will stop them. Only one burglary has been reported so far in February which could have happened over a period of time. It is unusual not to have any burglaries.
"Unfortunately we don't have any leads but we had at least two vehicles make off from patrols indicating they were up to no good."
There was also a spate of vehicle thefts in the Knutsford area with nine vehicles being targeted at Arley Moss Equestrian, The Smoker pub on the A556 and the Golden Pheasant near Plumley. Someone has been arrested in connection with these incidents and is currently on bail.
Knutsford's senior police officer also reported that rural crime has fallen recently with virtually none in the past couple of weeks.
In October more than 20 officers from across the county took part in Operation Under, which involved stopping all agricultural related equipment on the move, to ascertain whether the person was the rightful owner or driver.
The operation was organised because rural areas were being hit quite hard by organised crime, between April 2010 and November 2010 ninety-four agricultural related thefts took place in the Knutsford, Wilmslow and Macclesfield area.
Inspector Griffiths said "Operation Under was a real success, in the last two to three months rural crime has really died down. If we start getting a couple again then we will get straight back on to it.
"There are also no issues with anti-social behaviour in the town so it is nice to say that there is nothing to particularly concern anyone."
Knutsford police request that anybody who sees anything at all suspicious, or out of place, reports it to the police on 101 or Crimestoppers in confidence.
