IT has been revealed that South Cumbria has been consistently the highest in the county for alcohol related crimes since 2012.

The amount of crime recorded found with 'is under the influence of alcohol' or 'is alcohol related' shows that south Cumbria has steadily increased over seven years, which has increased from 1198 crimes in 2012, and 1913 crimes in 2019, that is a difference of 715.

The amount of crimes in total in south Cumbria, encompassing Barrow and Kendal was 13,102.

This is more than one thousand more than both north (Carlisle and Penrith), which was 11,309 in total, and west Cumbria (Workington and Whitehaven), which was 11,488 in total.

These statistics run from January 1 2012 to January 9 2020.

This information was revealed after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request was put in by The Mail to Cumbria Constabulary police.

The big spike in the data was in 2018 where all three sections of the county saw alcohol related crimes increase by more than 200.

In 2018, there was 2304 alcohol related crimes in south Cumbria which is still higher than both the north and west which totalled 2071 and 2042 respectively.

A police spokesperson said: “We take alcohol related offences very seriously, the statistics cover a wide range of offences from drink driving to drunk and disorderly.

"We run many operations across the year around issues such as drink driving as well as working with the community on incentives such as the Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP) to help prevent issues.”