Each borough should be clickable or hoverable and display motor vehicle thefts, the previous year's total, annual percentage change, population and thefts per 10,000 residents.

The map should also offer a switch between total thefts and thefts per 10,000 residents. Simply ranking boroughs by the number of offences can make larger areas appear disproportionately affected because they contain more residents.

Vehicle Theft Across Greater Manchester

The longer-term direction is clear.

These figures relate specifically to theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle and should not be confused with the much broader category of vehicle crime.

That distinction matters. Vehicle crime can include somebody stealing property from inside a car, interfering with a vehicle or attempting to gain access to it. For this research, we're primarily interested in cases where the vehicle itself has been taken.

The Home Office publishes police-recorded crime data by individual offence code and Community Safety Partnership, while its user guide explains how those geographic and offence classifications should be interpreted.

Official methodology: Home Office police recorded crime open data user guide

Vehicle Theft Has Fallen Sharply Since 2022

The most striking finding from the data isn't an increase in vehicle theft. It's the size of the decrease.

There were 8,243 recorded motor vehicle theft offences across Greater Manchester during 2022/23. That fell to 6,714 in 2023/24 before falling again to 5,605 in 2024/25.

In just two years, that's 2,638 fewer recorded offences, equivalent to a reduction of approximately 32%.

More recent GMP figures point in the same direction. Greater Manchester Police reported in April 2025 that between September 2024 and March 2025 there were 1,093 fewer theft-of-motor-vehicle offences than during the equivalent period a year earlier, representing a 26% reduction. Theft from vehicles fell by 28%, while vehicle interference also fell by 28%.

Source: GMP - Vehicle crime across Greater Manchester down 27 per cent

A research page about vehicle theft shouldn't exaggerate the problem simply because Secure Driveways sells security products. The official figures indicate that the situation across Greater Manchester has improved substantially. But a falling crime rate isn't the same thing as vehicle theft disappearing.

More Than 5,000 Motor Vehicle Thefts Were Still Recorded

Even after the substantial reduction, GMP's figures show 5,605 theft or unauthorised taking of motor vehicle offences during 2024/25.

That is an average of approximately 467 offences per month, or roughly 15 offences per day, across Greater Manchester.

Those averages are simply the annual total divided by 12 and 365 respectively, so they shouldn't be interpreted as the actual number recorded on any particular day. They do, however, help put 5,605 annual offences into perspective.

Greater Manchester Car Theft Hotspots by Borough

Greater Manchester is made up of ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.

The Home Office publishes police-recorded crime data at Community Safety Partnership level. Its user guide states that CSP areas generally correspond to single or combined local authority boundaries. The latest published CSP open dataset currently covers the year ending March 2026.

Official dataset: Home Office Police Recorded Crime and Outcomes Open Data Tables

ONS dataset page: Crime in England and Wales - Police Force Area data tables