How safe - or dangerous - is your neighbourhood?

Has crime shot up, or are burglary and violence levels falling faster than a bank's profits chart?

In a radical overhaul of the way crime figures are delivered to the public, Kent Police have put the statistics important to you just a click away.

So now you can compare your town's crime levels with the one down the road, and find out how much crime is in the neighbourhood where you're buying a home.

The site lists various types of offences including robbery, violence against a person and anti-social behaviour down to ward level.

So how good or bad are crime levels in your area? Click on this link to drill down the figures to where you live>>>

Chief Inspector Martin Cunningham, from the Kent Police Neighbourhood Policing Team said: "A lot of people are interested in crimes in their area and how that compares to other areas, once people start using it we might actually identify improvements that we can make through the feedback."

The Kent police crime map follows the successful launch of the Metropolitan Police's own map and will soon be copied by forces all over the UK.

Chief Inspector Cunningham thinks one of the main benefits will be that the public can see how low figures are.

He said: "real crime levels are often much lower than people think, this will help people to see that where they live is probably safer than they think."

John Oakley, the chairman of the East Kent branch of the National Association of Estate Agents thinks that the map could have an adverse effect on an already troubled house market though.

He said: "They are pretty depressed anyway but all this can do is depress the market even further because you are almost ghettoising certain areas. It could just compound the problem of people avoiding certain areas."

Mr Oakley is also concerned that the wards cover too large an area, meaning that good neighbourhoods could become adversely affected by neighbouring streets with high crime levels.

He said: "The geographic wards sometimes span two very dissimilar areas, one side which has high crime statistics and one which doesn't, for example North ward in Maidstone contains Penenden Heath and Ringlestone. It shows that all crimes have risen by 44 per cent. However, I think if you break down that ward even further, I would suggest a large proportion of the crime centres around the Ringlestone area, not Penenden Heath. So these crime statistics could actually disadvantage the Penenden Heath area significantly."