Rising prices trigger surge in metal theft

Metal thieves eager to cash in on the rising price of materials are performing ever more brazen raids on construction sites.

Police have launched a massive crack-down on the crooks to cut the illegal trade in metal products that has risen 150% since 2006, and costs the economy £360m a year.

One metal roofing contractor said crooks posing as builders on one of his construction sites managed to pilfer expensive coils of aluminium while they were being unloaded.

“As soon as the thieves saw the supplier leave, they managed to persuade the crane operator to lift the materials to another area of the site,” he said.

“As the supplier left with an empty truck, they left with a full truck in the opposite direction.”

Doug Wilson, managing director of Maidenhead-based Farr & Roberts, said he had also seen thefts from sites rise and that he has been forced to tighten security.

“We were doing some underpinning on a job in Windsor. We had a skip there surrounded by fencing and and a metal skip ramp and this white van pulled up, took the ramp and bits and pieces out of the skip, and off they went.”

Euroclad business operations manager Clive Wright said once or twice a month clients were forced to reorder products pilfered onsite.

“They’re stealing stuff that would be very hard to move, things you would have to have a lorry or forklift truck to move,” he said.