A crimebusting city centre partnership is celebrating a reduction in shoplifting.

City Centre Beat’s annual meeting yesterday was told there had been fewer theft offences in shops and fewer burglaries of business premises compared to the previous year.

In the organisation’s first annual report, Sergeant Johnathan Best, of the city centre Neighbourhood Policing Team, said the reduction in crime was a great achievement.

Sgt Best said the digital radio link system in stores and access to the CCTV control room had paid dividends in bringing about the reductions through the early identification and arrest of people committing crime in the city.

Sgt Best said: “Crime against businesses can have a powerful influence on economic prosperity and quality of life. Our ongoing partnership with City Centre Beat is an essential element in ensuring Bradford remains a safe and thriving environment.”

City Centre Beat was established in 1992 and became a Home Office approved crime partnership seven years ago. It now has more than 170 members, including shops, charity shops, licensed premises, hotels, Bradford Cathedral, Central Library and St George’s Hall.

City Centre Beat joint manager Steve Longbottom said regular thieves were so well known to members “it is inevitable they will get caught”.

He said: “The partnership is clearly working. It has many eyes and ears and we have a fantastic detection rate.”

Surveys of members for the annual report showed that in four years the numbers who felt safer at work as a result of City Centre Beat had risen from 80 per cent to 98 per cent.

Mr Longbottom said: “We are getting more and more eyes and ears. We give them intelligence through posters, websites and crime briefings, and last year we identified 150 regular offenders.

”Only yesterday, at our weekly crime briefing, we highlighted the case of a man wanted for 11 offences of theft from shops. Ten minutes after the meeting the man was seen by a British Heart Foundation member who broadcast the sighting on his City Beat radio. Two PCSOs gave chase and detained the man.”