DON’T drop your guard. That is the message from top policemen and security advisers to businesses in North and East Yorkshire.

It comes amid fears that the slow economy could spark a serious spike in business crime – and as the Sheffield-based Business Crime Reduction Centre (BCRC) is preparing for the first time to extend its activities into North Yorkshire.

In the three years since the BCRC was established by crime-fighting charity, People United Against Crime, it has helped 1,300 small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to reduce crime in the South Yorkshire Police area, safeguarding nearly 500 jobs.

Now the organisation is turning its attention to North Yorkshire this summer – possibly July – when it hopes to study the region’s figures and work with businesses, victims and other organisations to tackle crime head-on, be it shoplifting, fraud, robbery, burglary, fleeing without paying or cybercrime.

Its arrival in the region is welcomed by Grahame Maxwell, Chief Constable of North Yorkshire.

He said: “The extension of the BCRC’s activities into North Yorkshire will be a valuable development that will provide our small and medium businesses with an additional form of support in the fight against crime.

“It’s important that we all maintain our guard and remain vigilant, as in times of economic difficulties, levels of acquisitive crime rise.

“Businesses may find themselves targeted by external offenders and also, on occasion, by some of their own employees.

“Reducing security measures can seem to offer short-term savings, but these can very quickly be cancelled out by the resultant losses as vulnerabilities are exploited.”

David Ransom, chief executive of People United Against Crime, said: “We detected a surge in the business crime graph when the recession first hit in late 2009. Our research, which was based on South Yorkshire Police figures could, I fear, be replicated in North Yorkshire.

“That is why all business people in the region dare not drop their guard.”

Mr Ransom said that retailers, for instance, were at obvious risk if they reduced costs by cutting back on security measures, by not replacing a CCTV system or by shedding security staff.

“They shouldn’t be lulled into thinking that because they have not suffered crime recently, these are dispensable. The real reason they have been protected is that they have maintained their security in the past.

“They must continue to invest in vigilance and security measures or pay a heavy price.”

BCRC’s business security advisers were now preparing to give North Yorkshire firms a free security “health check” on their premises, on staff policies and on their ICT systems “to ensure they are both physically safe and not abused by cyber criminals”.