THE high levels of burglary in Enfield are a reflection of national crime rates, according to Enfield's Borough Commander.

Chief Superintendent David Tucker said police had been seeing an increase in burglary since October last year.

He said: "The current increase we are experiencing reflects a national trend.

"We are working closely with colleagues at Enfield Council and other agencies to reduce burglary, for example Our Safe as Houses programme which visits targeted areas providing door-to-door home security information and security devices was launched in April."

Enfield is the second worst London borough for burglaries according to annual crime statistics released this week.

Only Haringey, with 30 burglaries per thousand households topped Enfield, which suffered 26 per thousand households.

The figure is much higher than the average across London, which stands at 18 burglaries per thousand households a year.

The Conservative Party, which uncovered the figures, said the rise was "a big problem".

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "It's not just down to the recession.

"The jump in drug taking announced last week is also a big factor - since a large proportion of burglaries result from people trying to get money to feed a drug addiction."

Southgate's Conservative MP David Burrowes said he thought the rise was a result of police resources being focused on knife crime and other kinds of violent crime.

"We've got an appalling rate," he said. "Recently there has been an opportunity for these burglars to get out and about."

Mr Burrowes said the Safer Neighbourhood teams covering Palmers and Bowes Green had done a lot of useful work on burglary recently and had cleared up some prolific offenders.

But he said there was a need for a quick police response to burglaries.

"The response vehicles come from Ponders End so they only stand half a chance of getting to Hadley Wood and that's if there's an aggravating factor such as a burglar in the house.

"If it's a standard burglary it won't get that level of response."

Mr Tucker would not say why he thought the reason for Enfield's high rates of burglary are.

But he assured residents that officers were doing as much as possible to combat the problem.

"We are absolutely committed to reducing burglary to the lowest possible levels, as we know how this crime affects people in Enfield," he said.