Around your farm yard, in your barns and outbuildings there is valuable equipment that will appeal to thieves and West Mercia Police have provided some literature on ways that crime can be prevented in rural areas this includes ways to protect your buildings, securing your perimeters and protecting machinery and tools.
Some of the advice for farmers are:
- Lock farm buildings with good quality locking bars and high security padlocks.
- Protect any windows in farm buildings by installing metal bars or grilles.
- Fit mortice deadlocks on doors on farmhouses and install locks on any ground floor windows.
- Check hedges and fences on a regular basis and consider installing a gate alarm or barrier system.
- Install security lighting around buildings.
- Keep machinery and tools locked up and out of sight where possible.
- Visibly mark your machinery and tools.
- Shackle together items such as quad bikes, lawn mowers and rotivators.
You can download this advice here.
If you are unfortunate to be a victim of crime it’s important that you report it.
For crimes in progress call 999. For non emergencies report online www.westmercia.police.uk/report. If you’re unable to report online, you can contact the police via the 101 non-emergency number.
