£40k raid on council roads depot

HEAVY plant and vehicles worth over £40,000 has been stolen from a council yard at Lockerbie.

Police are probing the theft of council properly which saw a Mercedes gritting lorry, two Ford Transit tipper vans and an Iveco Dailly van with a 4 x 4 quad bike taken from Harthill Depot on Sunday night, March 14.

Thieves targeted the deserted yard and forced their way in between 4 pm and midnight to snatch the council-branded vehicles.

A number of smaller items were also taken in the mass raid.

DC Scott Barr of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary said: “We are still reviewing CCTV footage to see what exactly has happened. Enquiries are still on going in that respect.

“It’s not entirely clear how they got in, there is good CCTV coverage of the depot which we are currently reviewing.

“We are not sure where the thieves are from at the moment.”

Head of DG First services, Ronnie Dempster, confirmed he was satisfied with the level of security in place and felt they had gone as far as was reasonably practical to minimise the risk.

He said: “I was annoyed and frustrated when I heard about the thefts. Everything we had put in place over the years to make our depot so secure and then people had taken the liberty of raiding us.

“I felt for the guys as well. They have a lot of pride in their depot and they take it personally when stuff goes a miss from them.

*F“If this incident happened in the midst of

the heavy winter operations it would have put some additional pressure on us to fulfil our winter obligations especially with a gritter being stolen. But now that we are towards the end of the winter we can counter that with some of our back up and reserve vehicles.”

Commenting on the robbery detective constable Barr said: “We are looking for any witnesses who may have seen anybody over the last week or so acting suspiciously in and around the area and on the night.”

The trailer with the quad bike was later found on fire on the side of the southbound motorway near Gretna service station.

A spokeswoman for Dumfries and Galloway Council commented on the security of the depot and called it a ‘secure facility equipped with security fencing and CCTV’.



DUMFRIES and GALLOWAY POLICE: 0845-600-5701

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