FUEL thefts from petrol stations in East Lancashire have risen by more than half over the last three years, new figures show.

A Freedom of Information request by the Lancashire Telegraph found there were 589 ‘drive-offs’ in the eastern part of the county last year.

This equates to a 51.8 per cent increase on the number of incidents reported in 2015, 388, across Blackburn, Burnley, Darwen, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale.

In 2016 there were 377 reported fuel thefts - also known as bilking - which jumped to 503 the following year.

The data, which shows the number of fuel thefts made in the county between 2015 and 2018, was taken from over 70 petrol stations in the area.

A total of 1,532 drive-off incidents were recorded across the whole of Lancashire in 2018, compared to 840 reported incidents in 2015.

National supermarket chains, such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and Blackburn’s Euro Garages Ltd were some of the worst affected last year.

There have been more than 200 reported incidents in East Lancashire’s Tesco stores in the three-year period, including 67 drive-offs in 2017.

In 2018, there were a total of 59 fuel theft incidents at five of Tesco’s service stations in East Lancashire.

A spokesman for Tesco said: “We take all instances of theft at our petrol stations very seriously and work to assist police with all their enquiries.”

Euro Garages, which has its headquarters in Haslingden Road, Blackburn, had fuel stolen 21 times in 2018. This was nearly double the number of reported incidents in 2015.

Group commercial director at Euro Garages, Ilyas Munshi, said he was shocked the figures were higher.

However Mr Munshi said he would be shocked if deliberate attempts had been made to steal fuel from any of their stations.

He said: “I would be surprised if we have been targeted by the criminal element. I think people will have genuinely forgotten to pay for fuel and driven off without thinking.”

He said CCTV systems had been installed in all its stations and bosses said they ensure its petrol stations are well lit to deter potential criminals from stealing fuel.

Rising Bridge service station, Furthergate service station in Blackburn and Three Arches Spar in Feniscowles were also among the worst hit in East Lancashire.

The figures also show 96 per cent of petrol station fuel theft cases in East Lancashire have been unresolved over the last three years.

There are still 37 cases which remain under investigation from 2015, and just 82 out of 1,770 reported cases have resulted in someone being taken to court.

A Lancashire Police spokesman said: “There are a number of reasons that many of these reports remain unresolved.

“When a petrol theft is reported, it is immediately crimed on our systems. We find that often when an officer looks into the incident, there are genuine errors where people have forgotten to pay for their fuel. Despite this, the incident then stays on our system as a crime that has not been resolved.

“Some petrol stations report a few of these types of incident at once meaning some incidents are days or weeks old when reported. This results in a delay in the ability to undertake an early investigation, when there are more likely to be opportunities to help us solve the crime.

"In addition, the quality of CCTV available to us is a factor, as well as drivers who purposely steal fuel on cloned registration plates, making them hard to trace.”