More than 150 crimes were reported at Wiltshire’s train stations in the past year.

With a key railway heritage and located on the Great Western mainline, Wiltshire has a very busy railway system - almost 5 million passengers use the county’s eleven train stations every year.

But with that inevitably comes crime.

Across all stations in Wiltshire, 160 crimes were reported to British Transport Police between August 2021 and July 2022.

This is an 88 per cent increase on the 12 months prior, up from 85.

Data has revealed that Swindon is Wiltshire’s most crime-hit station, with 65 incidents reported.

Swindon Advertiser: Swindon train station.Swindon train station.

Chippenham was second with 27.

But both stations saw a high level of passengers. The station with the highest number of crimes per 100,000 passengers was Melksham, although because of its small size, it equated to just two crimes in the 12-month period.

Other stations with a high level of crimes per 100,000 passengers include Westbury (16 crimes, 5.9 per 100,000 passengers) and Trowbridge (23 crimes, 5.1 per 100,000 passengers).

How Wiltshire’s stations rank on crime reports between August 2021 and July 2022

  • Swindon, 65 reported crimes
  • Chippenham, 27 reported crimes
  • Trowbridge, 23 reported crimes
  • Salisbury, 20 reported crimes
  • Westbury, 16 reported crimes
  • Pewsey, 4 reported crimes
  • Warminster, 3 reported crimes
  • Melksham, 2 reported crimes
  • Dilton Marsh, 0 reported crimes
  • Tisbury, 0 reported crimes
  • Avoncliff, 0 reported crimes

All stations, with the exception of Dilton Marsh, Tisbury and Avoncliff, saw the number of crimes recorded at the station rise compared to the previous twelve months, when passenger numbers were decreased because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The most common type of crime at Swindon station is bicycle theft, with 11 offences reported in the past year.

Drugs (9), criminal damage and arson (8) and possession of weapons (8) also saw the most amount of reports.

There were also six public order offences reported to BTP at Swindon station between August 2021 and July 2022.

BTP says that busy stations will inevitably generate more reported crimes than those that are less busy, and police activity to target particular offences as well as other factors can affected reported crime figures.

The force adds: “Hundreds of millions of passenger journeys are made safely each year and the statistics should be viewed in that context.”