Crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers is today launching a pilot campaign to tackle the issue of metal theft across Yorkshire & Humberside, which costs the UK economy around £770 million per year.
The campaign is being run across the whole region, as well as the north east, as the charity aims to fight the number of incidents occurring in the respective regions that are disrupting the local community.

Crimes reported across the region include the theft of manhole covers, lead from church roofs and the stealing of war memorials.

The aim of this pilot campaign is to increase the amount of information coming to Crimestoppers from the public about the theft of metal, with the view that further campaigns can be run in the future tackling larger scale metal theft affecting industries such as transport and communication.

Crimestoppers Regional Manager for Yorkshire & Humberside, Dave Hunter, said: “Crimestoppers wants to encourage the public to fight back against the metal thieves who create severe disruption for local communities and cost millions to the UK economy.

“We want to scrap the metal thieves and the local public can help us to do this by passing on any information they might have on those committing this crime anonymously to Crimestoppers. We don’t want to know who you are, only what you know and you might even qualify for a reward.”

To pass on information about a metal theft incident, or any crime, please contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or through our secure online form at www.crimestoppers-uk.org.

The Council’s cabinet is to receive a report next week which effectively signals the end of public participation in “Ward Committee” meetings. It follows on from a savage cut to neighbourhood funding.
The budget for Ward Committee neighbourhood improvement schemes for 2011/12 was £646,000.

The Labour Council budget agreed last week reduced this to £224,000. A cut of 65%.

Now Labour are proposing to divide this money into 3 “pots” with only £75k available for schemes voted a priority by local residents.

Thus, pro rata, a Ward like Westfield which has had an annual budget for improvements of around £50,000 a year will find that reduced to about £6,000. This is what residents have voted on each autumn with the available funds over subscribed usually by a factor of 5.

It has been used in the past to address security concerns, provide better fencing, clean up derelict areas, improve play facilities, address parking problems etc.

There will be similar sums “ringfenced” for grants to organisations operating exclusively within a particular ward plus some for cross city voluntary groups. However the amounts likely to be available are derisory.

As with most of the Labour budget, we believe York residents simply don’t realise yet what is going to hit them.