A NEWLY published crime map has revealed a “quiet” residential road in Beckenham to be the worst for crime in the borough.

According to figures for December last year, there were 81 offences recorded on or near Monks Orchard Road, followed by Churchill Way in Bromley with 32 and Bromley High Street with 22.

They come after the Home Office launched an online crime map for people to see what crime has occurred in their streets.

Households in Monks Orchard Road claim the numbers have been distorted by the inclusion of police calls to Bethlem Royal Hospital, a psychiatric unit in the same road.

Tony Unseld, aged 65, said: “The statistics should be presented in a way that reflects households rather than taking into account institutions in the road.

“I am concerned that insurance companies will get their paws on these figures and that’ll be reflected in the premium going up.

“It’s bound to put people off wanting to buy houses round here.”

The stats show there were 69 crimes relating to anti-social behaviour, 10 to violent crime, one burglary and one uncategorised crime.

David Runnalls, aged 25, who works in IT, said: “The figures sound shocking. This is a close knit community.

“It’s a quiet road, nothing really goes on.”

Bromley police's borough commander Chief Superintendent Charles Griggs said: "Providing data in this way will never paint an accurate picture.

"It needs analysing and interpreting. It would be helpful if the Home Office website advised the user not to draw conclusions from a simple glance at the numbers.

"The Met Police has been providing crime maps for several years now and our individual borough websites are far more informative.

"If people want to know what is really happening in their local area they should visit our website at met.police.uk or contact their local safer neighbourhood team."

A Home Office spokesman said: “Crimes are mapped to an anonymous point on, or near, the street where it happened, never to their precise location and not normally on streets with fewer than 12 postal addresses.”

View the crime map at police.uk