Research has shown that Swindon is the second most safe town in the whole of the United Kingdom when it comes to burglaries.

The research, highlighted by security experts Locks Direct, revealed that Middlesbrough was the least safe as it was the most burgled town in the country.

The North East town has a staggering crime rate of 10.03, whereas Swindon comes in with a far safer crime rate of 2.32.

A question on everyone’s lips after reading that news will be which town pipped Swindon to the safest crown and the answer is a fellow South West town.

Plymouth has a lowly crime rate of just 2.07, coming in first in the United Kingdom when considering low burglary rates.

Overall, burglaries were actually down year on year for 2021.

Last year, England & Wales's police forces received 235,280 crime reports about burglary. This was a decrease of 14% from 2020's figure of 274,899 reports of burglary.

This means there was an overall crime rate of just 3.9 per 1,000 people in 2021 and a rate of 4.6 per 1,000 people for 2020.

It comes after an Adver investigation earlier this year revealed that just under 1 in 10 reported crimes never end up in court.

Just 9.89 per cent of the 28,764 reports that Wiltshire Police investigated between April and December 2021 ended up with a charge or summons.