by MartinD » Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:27 pm
We had the same problem a couple of years ago - 2 4X4's with trailers turning up in the dark to take wood. I went out to challenge them, whilst my wife phoned the police. I got them to unload the wood from the trailer. Same response - "we thought it was the councils" - as though that meant it was free for the taking! However, I think this must have been their second trip, as there was only half the volume of wood after it had been re-stacked. The police told my wife that I should not go out to challenge them (too late) - that it might be dangerous- and that they would deal with it. Two days later I got a phone call from the police - was there still a problem they could respond to? I said 'no', and they said they would patrol the area - but I've never seen a police car anywhere near.
Coincidentally I was talking yesterday to a woodsman who has been working in another part of the wood recently. They had felled some trees and cut them to 0.5m lengths, and went home for the evening. The following day ALL the logs had gone. There is a padlocked gate to the access track, and it would require a lorry to get that volume of wood out. So that day the felled more trees, but left them whole. That night a neighbour reported to one of the owners that the gate had been taken off its hinges, and the following day the woodsman found the gate back on its hinges, but that their trees had been logged and removed!
How do these people know where to go, and when, to get their ill gotten gains?