Kitchen Garden Forum

I just received the following email from our allotment site manager. Seems someone has been stealing the metal pipes from the site. What a rotten bit of news for the new year. I suspect that will mean an increase in rent to pay for replacements to be fitted... probably only to be stolen again.

I suspect we are not the first or the last to have this happen on their site - you have been warned.


Dear Plot holders

As you will have heard in the news metal theft has become and major problem with the high prices being paid for metals at the moment. Sadly, Northfield allotments became a target for the thieves over Christmas and they have stolen all but two brass taps and their pipes from the entire water tank system. The galvanised water tanks are, for the moment, still in place. The police have been informed. I would ask plot holders on Haslemere to be extra careful about locking the gates at all times and to phone the police if they see anything suspicious. Ascott allotments have also become a victim of this crime recently as have others in the Borough.

I have had a good look over the Northfield site and we have noticed that there are many plot holder owned galvanised water tanks and cast iron baths upturned (to empty), on plots at the Mattock Lane end that look like they are being lined up near breaks in the fence, for later collection. These tanks are all very heavy and valuable so if you know you have tanks or other metal items I would suggest you visit the allotment as soon as possible to secure them as best you can either on the allotment or for smaller items, take them home. I also noticed many sheds have been unlocked and rifled through, so again a visit to check your shed is advised. If your shed lock has been broken you can report it to the police and get a crime number. Please be careful going onto the allotments alone or in the high winds we have at the moment.

I have been up to our allotment today to check everything and "fingers crossed" everything seems ok at the moment. We have got lockable gates at the top and bottom of the plot which are kept locked most of the time. There are always times when people can't be bothered to get back out of their car to lock the gates behind them. There is nothing you can do about that.

We had a spate of stolen flags last summer so the gates were installed after that.

We also have problems with dog walkers not clearing up after taking their dogs round the track round the allotments.

We had pipework stolen from the outside edge of the KG HQ - cutting off water to our canteen. The government need to clamp down on the financial source of all this metal theft - scrapyards.
Heard a couple protesting innocence on Radio4 last night - but it's still an unregulated £3bn industry, and they need to get regulated fast.

KGAdmin

Last I heard, the Government was going to do something about this problem with Scrap merchants but whatever they do, there will always be the shady buggers who aren't bothered about the mayhem/expense/ caused by metal thieves.

It's a big problem in this area too. Several churches have had the lead stripped from their roofs, railways and electrical substations have had copper wire ripped out.

Touch wood...allotment is okay...hope I haven't jinxed it.

A year of so ago someone stole all the taps from our site - not only a nuisance but wasted lots of water too and then we lost the supply until they replaced the taps - this time with plastic ones which have been remarkably resilient. I thought that they'd quickly break or be broken.