Crime in Cleckheaton town centre dropped last month.

Speaking to members of Spenborough Chamber of Trade, town centre beat officer PC Steve Blakeley said there were 22 reported crimes in August compared to 32 in July.

Ten of those 22 were of criminal damage, two were burglaries, two were shoplifting, one was theft, three were theft from the person, one was robbery and three were assaults.

He said offences of note included the theft of the cash machine from inside Tesco in Northgate in the early hours of August 8 and a sledgehammer attack on Allen's Jewellers, also in Northgate, at lunchtime on August 21.

Both incidents involved stolen vehicles.

He said there were 91 crimes recorded for the whole of Cleckheaton in August, of which 22 had been committed in the town centre.

There were 2,304 crimes recorded in the entire Dews-bury police division for the same period.

PC Blakeley said that in July, three ram-raids took place in the town centre - two at Larkspeed in Bradford Road, which has since relocated to Leeds - and one at Yorkshire Building Society in Northgate where a cash machine was stolen.