Thieves...

[dosantos]

We are owners 8 acres of the greater Longbeech woods in Kent with, various owners all knowing each other and all looking out for each other. Some local youngsters do shoot on occasion but this does not seem to deter thieves.

Our caravan used during the coppicing season has been broken into and we lost a kettle and good cast iron pot along with boxes of charcoal stored in the bender. Nothing valuable , just irritating.

Of more concern is the pile of professionally clear felled stand of larch that one of our woodland neighbours had stolen in October. This has to have been someone with a key with the right vehicles and equipment to load up and drive away.

Although both instances of theft have been reported to the kent police there is little they can do. Nobody on site to witness anything and timber is not marked.

We are having endless problems with raves as well in summer. An attempt was made, on another poor neighbour who arrived in the early hours of the morning to evict the revellers, to charge him £5.00 to enter his own property. The party goers had cut off the chain and lock on the woodland .co.uk gate and replaced them with their own lock and key. The police came and observed but said there were too many party goers for them to get rid of. It would be laughable except for the mess left behind and they burnt all the milled timber.

The joys of owning woodland in Kent! Needless to say, Brian and I spend as much time as humanely possible between day jobs and home up in the woods keeping it safe from intruders these days.

[tracy]

Really sorry to hear about this Trish. Might be a good time to look at the community woods requests and get more people using the wood for camping etc. Ugh. What a pain these things are!

[Dave99]

Being one of the victims described in the message from dosantos above, we have been discussing various ways of protecting our cordwood and other items left there (including a 20 yr old kettle and some crappy garden chairs stolen at the same time as the cordwood - getting on for 1000 cubic feet of 2 year seasoned chestnut).

Most of the ideas that I have come up with have been vetoed by my wife as possibly life threatening, even though I tell her that that is the whole idea of my plan.

I expect that more woodland owners will start to see theft of firewood so long as fuel prices continue to rise and the lamentable way the current government are handling the financial situation.

I would expext that anyone actually caught by the police will probably be sent on some sort of 'jolly' - you know young car theives get driving experience courses and holidays abroad &c.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Main thing is.............don't let it get you down, don't let them beat you...............Lets hope we can catch one of the little darlings one day then we can go mediaeval on them.

Best regards to all.

[tracy]

Wow, we would be so upset to lose all that wood!

I hope you are all reporting this to the police. The more we tell them the more we hope they will take it more seriously.

You could also join farm watch. Might help.

Renting your woodland to people who want to do Bushcraft etc might also help, or police dog training or something! Just get more people in.

grrrr

[tobyphair]

i also have had all my chainsaws stolen your not the only ones alot of my friends that i cut with also have had their saws stolen

[tracy]

Many thanks to Simon at woodlands.co.uk who is helping owners to resolve some security issues. May I take this opportunity to remind everyone to please keep gates locked at all times. I know it is tempting to leave gates open while on a quick visit, or when waiting for some friends, but this is too tempting for passers by to gain entry!

[wrekin]

Leaving gates open when you are around also creates the impression that when the gate is closed, no one is around. A stout combination lock (Squire do some) is also a handy thing to put on a shared gate for an afternoon if you have a few visitors coming and don't want to be watching the gate all the time.

[MartinD]

Just had about 2 cubic metres of recently felled timber nicked - caught them in the act, and they returned what they had in their pickup, but they must have been doing repeat visits, as there is still about 2cubic m missing. It must have happened today, as they have left areas bare of yesterdays snow, and I went for a walk in the woods yesterday morning. Claimed that they didn't realise it was private land - wood neatly sawn into 0.5m lengths and stacked! I'm going to have to spend christmas moving it all into the garden (it it's still there!)

[jillybean]

Sorry to hear that Martin, hope you got their reg number, and dont forget to report it, thieving from public property is no different than thieving from private land, its all Theft.

[MartinD]

I was lucky, in that the felling we did close to the footpath / access point, we only logged insofar as it was blocking the path. The rest we left as trunks to be cut at a later date. If we had logged them, they would certainly have gone, as we cannot see this from the house. We've had people taking bits in their car boot before, but never on this organised scale - 4 of them with a pick-up and low-loader trailer.

Din't get a reg number - I was by myself, and didn't fancy confronting them too much. But I will be reporting it to PC Plod.