Revealed: Edinburgh's housebreaking hotspots

A housebreaker makes his move. Picture: Bill Henry

All five of the worst affected areas are in the Capital – with Granton topping the list.

The EH5 postcode, which covers Granton, Pilton and Trinity, saw 40.4 burglary claims per 1000 quotes.

Hot on its heels was EH4, covering Dean Village and Comely Bank as well as the A90 corridor to Barnton and Cramond, with 29.4 housebreaking claims for every 1000 quotes lodged.

Meanwhile, EH14, spanning Balerno, Currie and Juniper Green, grabbed third place, followed by EH15, covering Portobello and Duddingston.

In total, half of Scotland’s top 20 areas for break-in  payouts were in Edinburgh.

The new figures, compiled by price comparison website MoneySuperMarket, come after Edinburgh was named the break-in capital of Scotland last year.

In August, unaudited police management figures showed that domestic break-ins were up 60 per cent in comparison with the first quarter of 2014-15.

But yesterday city police insisted crime was falling thanks to the efforts of dedicated anti-housebreaking teams. And Councillor Cammy Day, city community safety leader, branded the latest research “unfortunate news”.

He said: “[Figures] like this from big corporate companies are just unhelpful. There has been an increase in police in the north of the city over the last 15 months or so.

“I would like to think some of these figures are because the police are catching [criminals] and people are reporting housebreakings more often. I think that’s part of it.

“If there’s a need for us to work with Police Scotland to do any more in Granton, then we will do that. If anything, there’s been a huge improvement in Edinburgh over the last couple of years.”

MoneySuperMarket analysed two million home insurance quotes run on the website over the last two years to identify the postcodes with the highest and lowest rate of claims – with the DD10 postcode area around Dundee seeing the lowest number.

Chief Superintendent Kenny MacDonald, Edinburgh’s Divisional Commander, said tackling housebreaking remained a “top priority”.

He said: “Whilst this is a crime that adversely affects Edinburgh, comparing the last eight months of 2015 with a similar period in 2014 we saw a 20.9 per cent reduction in housebreaking across the city. Across the same period we also saw our detection rate improve by 4.6 per cent.

“Every day we have officers patrolling the areas most affected and we will relentlessly continue in our efforts to reduce the number of victims even further.

“The public has a vital role to play in preventing housebreaking by ensuring they have appropriate security in place.”

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