Crime figures added to Neighbourhood Statistics website

Crime statistics have been added to an official government website that that allows people to check out myriad details about a neighbourhood.

The crime figures for individual areas available on the Neighbourhood Statistics website are provided by the Home Office . The data has been taken from 13 forces covering 2003-2004 and heralds the start of a plan to eventually publish an annual 'book' of crime across England and Wales.

The idea is eventually to have information from all 43 forces in England and Wales. 

The addition of this and other new data means by entering the relevant postcode into the site search function, you can now find out a host of important information on an area, such as house prices, crime figures, schools and services.

This now includes information on air quality, housing in poor condition and indices of deprivation and education achievements.

Data on population turnover in a neighbourhood, both inward and outwards, has also been added to the site. The National Statistics Office, which runs the website, expects to add more data in the coming months.

In future, it will also calculate a  life expectancy  for children born between 2002 and 2004, highlight incidents of fire and rescue service emergencies and the number of housing benefit claimants living in an area.

There will also be information on new jobs between 1998-2004. As well as giving users the chance to peruse data on local areas, it also offers links to other sites, including the General Registry Office and the National Statistics site.