The country land and Business Association has joined calls for scrap metal dealers to increase traceability by accepting only card payments, which the organisation believes would go some way towards preventing opportunistic metal theft from farms and rural businesses.

image expired

Metal theft, wherein metal items including farm gates, lead and copper wiring are stolen and sold to scrap dealers, is on the rise in many parts of the country, according to police sources and countryside groups.

The CLA calls come after Graham Jones, MP for Hyndburn, sponsored the Metal Theft Protection Bill, which was debated in parliament last month. The bill proposes stricter licensing, including mandatory cashless payments, for certain types of scrap metal.

CLA President Harry Cotterell said, "Stolen metal is being traded too easily within the scrap metal industry. Banning cash sales would prevent anonymous sales because the metal could always be traced back to the person who sold it to the dealer. This is how France, Belgium and parts of the United States have clamped down on metal theft."

As part of its Autumn Statement, the government said it recognised metal theft presented a “serious problem” to rural communities and agreed to set up a metal theft taskforce to build intelligence and crack down on criminal groups working within the UK.   

Tweet