HATE crime has almost doubled in Bournemouth in the last year, according to figures from Dorset Police.

The figures, which were presented in a report to the Community Overview and Scrutiny panel, revealed a 42 per cent increase in the number of racially or religiously aggravated crimes reported.

The report from the Bournemouth Community Safety Partnership, also revealed an eight per cent increase in the number of domestic abuse violent crimes and a 10 per cent increase in anti-social behaviour incidents across the Borough.

For hate crime, the figures show an increase from 64 to 91 crimes being reported to Dorset Police between April and September last year.

And as a result the partnership has included 'hate crime' to its list of priorities for 2017/18.

Speaking at the meeting on Thursday, community safety manager Andrew Williams said: "Hate crime is something we need to raise in profile so victims know they can come forward and report these types of incidents as a crime."

Mr Williams explained that as well as racial and religiously motivated crimes - the partnership would also be working on raising the profile of disability-related hate crime stating that it is "significantly under reported".

He also outlined how the partnership would be tackling hate crime going forward - which included the introduction of new "third-party reporting centres".

The centres will be for victims who do not want to report an incident to the police, but still want support.

According to the report, there have also been attempts to build good relationships with communities likely to experience hate crime - specifically European communities following the EU referendum in June last year and the Bournemouth Islamic Centre and Central Mosque.

During Thursday's meeting members also discussed the ongoing issue of anti-social behaviour in Bournemouth.

Mr Williams explained to the panel that there was "a mixed picture" across the Borough when it comes to anti-social behaviour.

Certain areas such as Littledown, Muscliff and Kinson and West Howe were continuing to see reductions in anti-social behaviour - whilst the town centre and Winton North still had problems.

"Winton in particular is a complex and interesting area as it has a mixture of anti-social behaviour issues from begging and street drinking to noise complaints and problems with youths at Winton Rec and Pine Park," added Mr Williams.

"There is some really good work going on to deal with these issues but it is ongoing."

Compared to the rest of Dorset, Bournemouth has the lowest increase in anti-social behaviour reports with 10 per cent - compared with increases of 19 per cent in Poole and 15 per cent across the Dorset County Council area.