Falmouth stores look set to see the return of a shop watch radio scheme this Spring, after a rise in shoplifting over Christmas and for the year as a whole.

Latest figures made available by the police show that there were 67 shoplifting offences committed in Falmouth over the month of December, leading up to Christmas Day - as compared to 61 for the same period last year.

For the year from April 1, 2011 until last Monday (January 23) there were 142 cases reported, which is already a 17 per cent rise on the 121 shoplifting offences committed between April 2010 and April 2011.

Town manager Richard Gates, who is pushing for a revamp of the shop watch radio scheme, said it was not a “reactive” measure and had been discussed as early as September.

“It’s very much a positive thing,” he said, “there is not a reactive reason for doing it, we just felt we wanted to get it reinstated because it’s been used in other towns where it’s been a success.”

The scheme, which will be re-launched in April as part of a six month trial before a town-wide rollout, was discussed at the latest meeting of the Association of Falmouth Traders, whose minutes describe shoplifting as reaching “epidemic proportions before Christmas.”

Sergeant Dave O’Neill, from Falmouth CID, said every Christmas sees a rise in thefts from shops and expressing the increase as a percentage means the facts can be “skewed awfully.”

“There is an increase, but it’s not an epidemic,” he added.

When approached, traders in the town expressed mixed reactions to the reported increase in thefts, but were largely supportive of a renewed interest in the shop watch scheme.

Surf shop Ann’s Cottage said they had noticed a marked impact on their stock from the increasing levels of shoplifting, which they believe has seen more valuable items being targeted, not just the smaller products that are more easily stolen.

Simon Van-Evelingen, manager at Sessions on Church Street, said the issue was nowhere near as bad as it used to be for them, although they had noticed the “odd pair” of sunglasses disappearing from stock.

He said: “We have got a lot of staff in the shop so we have always got enough people to deter the opportunistic thieves.

“We are not really noticing things disappearing but maybe my stock check at the end of the day will tell me a different story.”

Sainsbury’s Falmouth manager Rob Walker said all such things tend to go in cycles, but a “very subjective” view of the situation was that “there has been a generally increasing trend.”

“It’s a very subjective view because I have not got any raw data to back that up with, but talking with the staff the feeling is there have been more incidents, certainly since Christmas,” he said.

A spokesperson for Boots on Market Street said shoplifting has always been an issue for them, especially with the fragrance gift sets and high value items available throughout December.

But the thieves targeting their store appeared to be becoming more careless, she said and: “it was just a case of grab and run over Christmas.”