Thursday 19 May 2016

More crime in Turnditch Orchard

At the weekend when I visited the orchard to pick up some sawdust left over from the tree felling work I noticed that someone had cut the main gate chain. They'd used bolt cutters to cut through the chain, I found the evidence in the cut links on the ground. There are clear cut marks on the link. Whoever did this tried to hide the effects of their criminal damage by attempting to knot the chain around the gate frame.


Turnditch orchard crime a link cut from chain.
A link cut from the gate chain on Turnditch Orchard

I don't know the motive behind this latest attack, but it is getting damned annoying. Those people/organisations who are allowed vehicle access have been given a key, at our expense, to the gate padlock. We'd allowed enough looseness in the chain to allow dog walkers access for their dogs to the public footpath. In common law we only are required to allow access to humans along the foot path and the old stile remains open. A contact phone number is posted on the gate to allow people to call us if they need access.

It is time for us to get a bit tougher on the security of the site. Few people know I used to help design physical security for premises located in Africa and the Middle East. Soon people will be finding access security to the orchard much more difficult to compromise.

Edit: 8th June 2016: I spoke too soon. We've had another attack before I had chance to introduce the new security measures.

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