Burglars targeting a new housing development in the Bahamas will be met by the crime-busting ideas of a Bradford policeman.

PC Stephen Town spent a week in the islands off the Florida coast advising government chiefs on how they could cut crime by improving the design of streets and buildings.

And the Bahamas police immediately put him to work on the design of a new development of 600 houses.

PC Town, an architectural liaison officer with Bradford police, has won awards for his work on the Buttershaw, Delph Hill and Woodside estates - where he helped cut crime by more than 80 per cent.

And many of the ideas PC Town put into practice in Bradford are to be repeated at the new Bahamas development.

"They face similar problems to us but in a very different environment against a very different background, and therefore you have to look at it in a different way," he said.

"I think we made very significant progress, especially since I was only there for four working days. We were looking at changing the way planning and policing is carried out in order to reduce opportunities for crime."

He recommended that alleyways should not run to the back of properties and that new buildings should be designed to make it easier to spot any nearby strangers. It is also important that people walking around the estates feel that they are visible to householders, he said.

PC Town also advised the local police on how they could cut crime in existing properties.

"The physical state of many of the dwellings -- especially of the so-called 'chapel houses' - is often so poor that it is beyond improvement," he said.

In these cases he recommended an intensive property-marking scheme similar to one which helped to slash crime on Bradford's Parkside estate.

And Christopher Nuttall, head of the island's crime task force, said PC Town's ideas would play a major role in the Bahamas' first burglary reduction project, targeting crime in one of the country's poorest districts.

"PC Town's visit was completely successful," he said. "He got on very well with the police officers here with him being a police officer himself."

Mr Nuttall - a former head of research at the Home Office - said he would be meeting with the chief of police to discuss a five-point plan of recommendations identified for the area by PC Town.

"I hope we can apply his ideas in other areas of the country as well," he said.