Burglary at remote Peak District farm, murder arrest

I used to live in Whaley Bridge. I can’t speak for there, but where I now am in the Yorkshire Dales thefts of plant and equipment from farms are now an epidemic. Just a few weeks ago, thieves stole a lorry, stole plant, got the lorry stuck and then set fire to the whole lot in an effort to hide their tracks. A few weeks before that, a farm in my village was targeted, and reports come in daily of similar events. Down in Skipton, burglars are known to come on “crime holidays,” staying in AirBnBs or similar and spending their evenings roaming the streets looking for soft targets.

There’s no police presence to speak of: no visible car patrols, no foot patrols, a complete pull-back of all but the largest stations.

Local farms and villages now run their own alert systems to report suspicious vehicles and so on to each other. I suspect it won’t be long before farmers with shotguns on patrol are a common feature.

If you want an indication of how poor belief in the Police is, look at the collapse in the number of Special Constables: even those who want to help don’t seem to want to do so with the current force.