By comparison, the rate of recorded offences of all types fell by almost 22 per cent within Northern Grampians Shire, one of the best results in the wider region.

Some of the worst performing municipalities in western Victoria, such as Yarrimabiack, Warrnambool and Swan Hill, saw overall increases in the number of recorded criminal incidents of between 7.9 and 8.6 per cent.

The average municipality in western Victoria saw a 4.6 per cent decrease in recorded criminal incidents in the 12 months to December.

A 19 per cent increase in crimes against the person and 7.5 per cent increase in crimes against property contributed to Ararat’s overall increase.

One of the biggest percentage increases was in the rate of arson offences, with the equivalent of more than 183 offences per 100,000 people.

Assault, stalking, and sex offence rates were all up by between 17 and 41 per cent but drug offences and public order offences saw decreases of almost 15 per cent.

Northern Grampians Local Area Commander Paul Bertoncello was not available for comment before publication deadline.

Insp Bertoncello did release a statement welcoming a “significant decrease” in crime of 6.1 per cent aggregated across the Ararat and Northern Grampians.

"This is a fantastic result and can be attributed to the hard work and coordinated approach of police in a variety of roles including: general duties members; crime investigators; proactive unit members; and intelligence practitioners,” he said.

“We still have work to do in a number of areas across the Police Service Area, but we take pride in what we've been able to achieve over the past 12 months. We'll be using this as motivation to strive for further community safety outcomes through 2018.”

Ripon MP Louise Staley said crime in Ararat had risen since the Labor state government was elected.

“These results are more than statistics: 1289 Ararat families were victimised because of the Andrews Government’s inability to combat rising crime,” Ms Staley said.

“Our police work hard, but they are sick and tired of catching the same offenders. We need to fix our justice system and toughen up bail.”