Representatives from the worlds of police and politics met to speak about the blight of burglary across Greater Manchester at an event last week.

The event, which was attended by officers from across GMP's 10 districts, was part of the force's anti-burglary operation called Operation Castle.

According to police, since Operation Castle started almost two years ago, it has seen a lot of successes.

The number of burglaries solved last year was up more than 68 per cent compared to the previous year.

But there is still work to do, which is why representatives from the worlds of police – such as Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes and Superintendent Chris Foster – and politics – such as Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester Kate Green – met to speak about best practice when it comes to burglaries.

Attendees heard from academics and victims too.

Assistant Chief Constable Sykes said: "This event was important for us as a force to tackle these issues head on.

"By bringing together a number of people and experts from a number of disciplines, we can enrich our knowledge and hear from victims of burglary who can aid our understanding and help improve our response to future incidents, to ensure we keep our continued promise of keeping residents of Greater Manchester safe from crime.

"We use a multi-agency approach to understand key factors that contribute to some areas being targeted more than others. We understand that many burglaries are preventable and can often be predicted, so we will continue to provide crime prevention advice to members of the public which can help prevent burglaries.

"We will also continue to scrutinise our own response through frameworks that is standardised across every district in Greater Manchester.

"Our continued progress with Operation Castle showcases that this is not a flash in the pan operation. As a force, we are committed to continuing to improve our methods of tackling burglaries.

"We remain committed to responding to incidents quicker and increase our response time to dealing with burglary offences. In March, GMP’s Force Contact Centre answered 999 calls in an average 6 seconds and attended grade 1 calls in an average of 10 minutes. We are attending incidents quicker and dealing with them better than we ever have by using all resources available to us.

"GMP will continue this momentum shown in the successes of Operation Castle, to improve our service to victims of crime whilst protecting the citizens of Greater Manchester."

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.