Police have arrested six suspected bike thieves this month as new figures revealed bicycle thefts in the borough had risen 20 per cent.

A working party of cycling campaigners, officers and the council has been meeting monthly since September to tackle the problem, which centres on Grove ward.

Schools in the area, which covers Kingston station and the town centre, have been given free marking kits, while police have put public education posters near bike racks.

Cycle campaigner Jon Fray, who sits on the new working party, said tactics needed to shift from marking bikes to preventing them being taken in the first place.

He said: “We were quite encouraged because first off [the police] said ‘Whatever we have been doing in the past has not been working and we have to do something differently’.”

A total of 488 bikes were recorded stolen in Kingston between April 2011 and last month, compared with 408 in the same period last year, the seventh biggest increase in London.

However, Kingston police said the five-year trend in bike thefts in Kingston remained flat, despite an increase in ownership during the period.

Sergeant James Waddington said: “Most of the bikes stolen are taken from children. Late for school, dashing off to join their friends, it is all too easy to hope their discarded bike will be there when they return. There is no guarantee it will be.

"Some thieves just take them for a quick trip and then dump the bike elsewhere.

"Without the frame being registered, or at the very least the bike being marked via permanent chemical etching with an invisible postcode, it is hard for us to rejoin bike and owner.”

Police advised people to buy good locks for their bicycles, and secure their garden shed if they kept their bikes there.

- Two men were arrested on Thursday, February 16, and have been charged with bike theft and going equipped. They have been bailed until Friday, March 30.