Edinburgh at top of housebreaking table

The research by Moneysupermarket.com shows the capital tops the housebreaking league, with North Ayrshire and the city of Glasgow in second and third place.

Although government  figures show that the trend in domestic break-ins in Scotland has been falling over the last decade, the most recent statistics have revealed a rise during the  recession. Housebreaking went up 7 per cent in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee in the last year.

Moneysupermarket.com analysed 3.5 million home  insurance quotes across the UK to come up with its figures. They show that 9.9 out of every 1,000 householders in Edinburgh made a claim on their home insurance because of housebreaking.

In North Ayrshire, 9.7 people out of 1,000 reported a break-in, while the next on the list was Glasgow City with 8.9 in 1,000.

Also in the top ten local authorities for housebreaking were East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire, and Perth and Kinross.

Rural areas maintained their reputation for low crime, with Aberdeenshire (2.2 per thousand), Angus (2.1 per thousand), Argyll and Clyde (1.4), and Aberdeenshire and Moray (1.2)  at the bottom of the league table.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: “We are committed to tackling  acquisitive crime, including business and residential housebreakings.

“Housebreakers are opportunists who will look to  profit wherever an opportunity presents itself, and properties which are suspected  of containing large quantities of valuable goods are an  attractive target.”

Leeds, Bradford and London had the highest rates for burglary in the UK, with homeowners paying an  average of £30 a year more for living in a high-risk area.

Hannah Jones, home insurance expert for Moneysupermarket.com, said the Scottish figures showed the need to be vigilant.

“Think about it like this:  if you’ve bought a new flat-screen television, for example, and leave the empty box outside of your property for rubbish collection, you’ve given a green light to any  opportunistic thieves looking for rich pickings,” she said.