Plant more likely to be stolen than cars

Plant owners are more likely to have their machines stolen than their cars, vans and trucks, according to Home Office estimates. However, those Cesar-registering their machines are as likely to have them recovered as road-going vehicles.

"Official estimates are that road-going vehicles are stolen at a rate of 18 per 1,000, whereas with plant the figure is put at 26 per 1,000," said Kevin Howells, director of Datatag, which administers the Cesar scheme.

At below 10%, the recovery rate for stolen plant also compares badly with the figures for road-going vehicles - around half of which are found by the police. However, of the seven Cesar-registered machines reported stolen, four have been recovered.

Two Cesar-registered machines were recovered after a shipping agent employee saw the stickers on the side and called the contact telephone number. The Jamaica-bound machines, an Atlas Copco compressor and a 3t Thwaites dumper, registered to JF Hunt, had been stolen three days earlier.

Datatag is also in the process of incorporating a database of around 20,000 machines reported stolen from 1999 onwards, with the aim of providing a one-call checking service for plant buyers and the police.

Following the success of Operation Crassus, which uncovered more than £1m-worth of stolen plant, trailers, trucks, vans and 4x4s, the UK-wide operation targeting plant movements is to be repeated.

Annie Mitchener, national co-ordinator of the National Roads Policing Intelligence Forum, said many of the stolen machines were carried on un-roadworthy trucks. In the future, she said, plant checks will become a part of 'Operation Mermaid', which is conducted at least seven times a year.