Sandycroft businesses left counting the cost of crime after series of break-ins

Businesses on the Sandycroft Industrial Estate are counting the cost of a recent spate of break-ins and thefts.

County Scaffolding of Chester, which provides services all over the north-west, is one of the businesses affected after experiencing two separate break-ins at their storage yard.

The firm were targeted during the early hours of Saturday morning and again on Monday evening.

One of the company’s employees told Deeside.com intruders managed to remove a piece of metal fencing from behind the business’s premises, to gain entry into their yard.

“Whoever it was came well-prepared”, he said, as thieves managed to prize open the doors of a 20ft steel shipping container situated on site and steal the contents including tools, workwear items and the keys to one of the company’s wagons.

It was only when a member of staff went down to the yard on Friday night to feed the wild cats that live around their premises, that he noticed the front gate had been broken open.

He then noticed the doors to one of the shipping containers had been forced open and one of the wagons was missing.

The stolen wagon was later found abandoned in the nearby car park of The Bridge Inn on Chester Road.

The stolen wagon sustained around £500 worth of damage, including a wrecked steering column and ignition switch and the theft of its rear number plate.

Number plate stolen from a scaffolding firms lorry

A member of staff from County Scaffolding said:

“The diesel gauge doesn’t work on the wagon that was stolen, plus we never store any fuel in our vehicles overnight. So I think the wagon must’ve been dumped almost straight away, when they realised they weren’t going to get very far”.

He added: “We’ve all lost 2 days of work so far, as the wagon can’t be driven at the moment as we can’t get a replacement steering wheel column for another 5 days, if we don’t get the use of another vehicle in the meantime, we’re going to lose more work.”

North Wales Police visited the yard on Saturday, forensics officers ‘swept’ the vehicle buts it’s thought no fingerprints were found.

A second break at the same yard happened on Monday evening around 10.30pm when there was another attempt to steal the wagon however the thieves werent able to deactivate the vehicles immobiliser.

A second business affected by the recent spate of break ins, had the passenger window to one of their work transit vans smashed whilst it was left parked at the premises over a weekend, although it hasn’t been confirmed whether any items were stolen from inside the vehicle.

A third business located on the estate suffered similar events a few weeks ago, after trespassers made off with old car batteries and scrap wheels through a section of fence they’d managed to pull down.

Since the incident, the business owner has had a High-Tec CCTV system installed, even though he believes it was carried out by ‘opportunists’. He said: “They’re just out to see what they can get”.

North Wales Police haven’t commented on the break ins.