LIVERPOOL has long been the butt of the nation’s jokes about car theft and stolen hub caps.

But now a nationwide survey has revealed the city is nowhere to be seen in a league table of Britain’s car theft hotspots.

Moneysupermarket.com released their annual top 20 league of shame – the locations where motorists made the most claims for car theft.

Top of the list was Chislehurst, a wealthy south London suburb, where 3.82% of people said they had made claims for their car either being stolen or raided.

Cities including Sheffield, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester also featured – with two Manchester areas in the top 20.

Similarly, Essex towns Romford and Ilford both featured three times in the league table.

The figures were taken from insurance quotes offered between September, 2008, and August, 2009.

Merseyside avoided the top 20 by some distance, with Halewood and its surrounding area marking the region’s first appearance, in 44th place in the table.

The company said 2.58% of motorists living in the L26 area had made a claim for their car being stolen or burgled.

Only areas with more than 100 insurance claims were included in the website’s statistics.

Merseyside Police temporary superintendent Gary Hilton said he was unsurprised Merseyside was absent from the top 20.

He credited the force’s Total War On Crime, which launched across Merseyside in 2006.

He said: “Comedians like to joke they go on holiday to Liverpool to visit their hub caps, but we have known for some time car theft and theft from cars has fallen. In fact, there was a 46% drop in those crimes in the past three years.”