Picturesque village tops car crime 'hotspots' list » Communities » 24dash.com

Villages and small towns can be just as bad for car crime as big conurbations, according to figures out today.

The worst spot for theft from cars and theft of cars is the village of Winchelsea in East Sussex, research by moneysupermarket.com found.

Two small towns - Saltburn-by-the-Sea in Cleveland and Godstone in Surrey - occupy second and third place in the car-crime table.

Although big cities such as Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool feature in the table, other crime blackspots included Treorchy in Mid Glamorgan, Buckhurst Hill and Ongar in Essex and the small town of Alness in Ross and Cromarty, northern Scotland.

The statistics were based on the number of claims made on motor insurance by residents in the last five years.

A total of 4.1% of Winchelsea residents - living within the postcode TN36 - had made claims, while the figure for Saltburn was 3.15% and for Godstone 3.02%.

Andy Leadbetter, head of insurance at moneysupermarket.com said: "It is quite a shock to see smaller rural villages snatching the top spots in the UK for car theft, whether it's theft from the vehicle or of the vehicle itself.

"I'd expect to see bustling urban hot spots to be topping the list but it seems English villages are not the idyllic locales we may think - at least not when it comes to car theft."