Exposed: Hate crime capital of Lancashire is also one of its most violent places

And Preston is the second worst district, behind Blackpool, for the price tag attached to violent crime.

The authorities estimate violence - rape, murder, robbery and attacks causing injury - cost £48m in Preston during 2012/22. In South Ribble the bill came to £22m and in Chorley it was £18m. Blackpool was by far the worst of the county's 14 districts, where violent crime cost £79m.

The statistics come from a new report by the Lancashire Violence Reduction Network to be presented to Preston Council's Crime and Disorder Committee next week.

In it the grim picture painted of Preston is one of increasing violence, with the city said to have the highest rate of hate crime across the county. It has a higher rate of hospital admissions for violent crime than the national average and a higher suicide rate than the North West average.

The report says the volume of serious violence cases has been rising in Preston – it stood at 7,420 recorded crimes in 2021/22. That was up almost 800 on 2020/21 (6,612) and also higher than 2019/20 (6,754). The city has the second highest ratio of cases per 100,000 of population in Lancashire, although the rate is still lower than the regional and national averages.

In Preston the St Matthews ward had the highest number of domestic abuse incidents in 2021/22 – and the second highest rate across Lancashire - followed by Ribbleton and City Centre.

One of the most shocking statistics puts Preston at the very top of the table for hate crimes, mostly stemming from race, ethnicity and nationality. Preston also has the county’s second highest volume of juvenile offending in 2019/20, mostly involving white males aged 15 to 17. It also has the third highest volume of adult offending, mostly white males aged 35 to 39.

Hospital admissions for violence were higher than the national average, although less than in the North West overall. Sharoe Green Ward had the highest number of ambulance call-outs, followed by City Centre and St Matthews. The report also reveals that Preston has four Serious and Organised Crime (SOC) groups operating in the city.

The city, with its population of 147,900 (2021 Census), is higher than the national average for the number of babies born to teenaged mums aged (12 to 17) and also for babies born lower than the national average birth weight.

Of Preston’s 66,120 homes, 2,439 were empty at the time the survey was carried out. The average price of a house in Preston was £155,000 compared with the England average of £285,000.

Around 17 per cent of Preston people were on Universal Credit - the sixth highest in Lancashire and higher than nationally. Only 67 per cent - two thirds - of working age people were in employment.

Life expectancy in the city in 2020 was 75.1 years for men (below both the regional and national average) and 79.6 for women (again below England and the North West).

On smoking 10.7 per cent of Preston folk admitted to being smokers, slightly less than the national figure. And 452 in every 100,000 of the population were admitted to hospital for alcohol related conditions - the North West average was 500.