THE NUMBER of crime reports in Kilwinning has dramatically fallen compared to the same period of time the previous year.

Data from Police Scotland shows that 126 crimes were reported from the start of November to the end of December in 2014, which is a massive fall from the 215 reports which were made in the same period of 2013.

It resulted in a drop of cases involving assault, housebreaking and consumption of alcohol but did see a rise in the number of damage to property cases and drug misuse charges.

The amount of calls from the residents of Kilwinning to the police also significantly fell with 638 calls made compared to 698.

Inspector Joseph Conway said: “We don’t particularly know the reasons why the amount of reported crime has reduced so much but it can only be viewed positively.

“It possibly could be having more of a police presence in the streets of Kilwinning or people not committing crime due to the growing presence of CCTV.

“CCTV is a great thing and works very well. There may be a limited amount of operators but having the cameras there is very important for us and is a proven deterrent.” There was no such drop in the wards of Irvine West and Irvine East however as the amount of crime reported stayed at around the same level. In Irvine West, there was actually a very small rise with 406 crime reports compared with 404 in the previous year and the number of reported assaults rose from 49 to 54.

Calls to the police from residents in the area also increased from 1,455 to 1,506.

Irvine East however, saw a slight drop in both crime reports and calls from the public in the last two months of 2014.

Only 172 crimes were reported compared with 188 in 2013 and the amount of calls dropped to 759 from 807.