Burglars and car thieves from West and South Yorkshire have been preying on householders and businesses in the Selby area, taking advantage of its good transport links and using the M62 and the A1 for easy escape routes.

Selby District Council is now looking to work with North Yorkshire Police to expand the use of mobile surveillance cameras to target specific crime hot spots.

The latest CCTV systems, installed in significantly smaller camera units to avoid vandalism and using high quality digital recordings as well as automatic number plate recognition technology, which can pinpoint vehicles involved in criminal activity, are already being employed.

Burglary rates in the Selby area have increased over the past year and the council's deputy leader, Brian Percival, admitted the problem of travelling criminals was one of the biggest the area was facing.

Coun Percival, who is also the authority's community safety champion, said: "We will obviously not tolerate any sort of crime, and we are doing all that we can to tackle the issues. We are looking to use mobile CCTV units to target problem areas, as well as the next generation of CCTV.

"We know that criminals are coming in from surrounding towns and cities such as Sheffield, Leeds, Pontefract and Barnsley because of the prosecutions that have already been brought."

Latest figures have shown burglaries of domestic properties in the Selby area have increased by more than six per cent in recent months.

There were 68 break-ins from April 1 until the end of July – an increase of four offences compared with the same period last year.

The local government watchdog, the Audit Commission, has flagged up the problem of travelling criminals as an issue that Selby Council needs to address after publishing a report today on the authority's community safety service.

Its report noted the criminals have focused on burglary, the theft of cars and plant machinery as well as a range of other anti-social offences such as the use of off-road motor vehicles and fly-tipping.

But a council spokesman stressed that Selby mirrored the rest of North Yorkshire in having one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

According to the British Crime Survey, there were 1,153 crimes committed in the Selby district in 2007-08 compared with four years earlier, a reduction of 29.5 per cent.

The burglary rates remained low for the 36,000 households in the area, according to the council spokesman.

The Audit Commission acknowledged significant progress had been made in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour by the council, which has employed schemes such as night marshalls to patrol problem areas including Tadcaster on Friday and Saturday nights.

But the report noted that community tensions remain in newer housing developments, such as in Barlby, resulting in hot spots of anti-social behaviour with graffiti and gangs of youths hurling verbal abuse.

A lack of parental supervision has been identified as one of the main causes, although Coun Percival stressed efforts were being made to engage with young people in areas such as Barlby to prevent the problems.

The Audit Commission's inspection team ranked Selby Council's community safety service as good and awarded it a two-star rating.

Commission senior manager Michael Newbury said: ""There are still some challenges – burglary has not reduced as much as other types of crime, fear of crime remains an issue and the council needs to do more to show what actions are making the most difference."

The Selby District Community Safety Partnership has one part-time and two full-time members of staff and a budget of £257,000 this financial year. It oversees a range of schemes to tackle drugs, anti-social behaviour and environmental offences.