Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2015 | Page 91

COUNTRY LIFE

In the
Country

Sam's tip for the countryside!

Secure your property

by Sam Biles
Sam Biles is Managing Director
of country Estate Agents:
www.bilesandco.co.uk

O

n the same theme on the article on rural crime it is
sensible to take a walk around your property and
to look at where security can be improved, gates, locks,
openings, sheds, outbuildings and unsecured machinery
are all temptations for rural criminals. Your insurers and
the Police will be pleased to provide advice. It’s not just the
monetary loss if there is a theft – many victims say that it is
the feeling that their home or property is no longer safe that
is the most upsetting.

Better safe than sorry
Sam Biles takes a look at rural crime and how it affects the Island

W

e really don’t know quite how
lucky we are on the Isle of
Wight regarding the levels of
rural crime which we suffer. If you take a
drive through most counties of southern
England or the Midlands then you see
that every roadside gateway is blocked by
a pile of earth or by a padlocked gate or
barrier. The farm buildings are equipped
with roller doors with combination
locks and machinery is parked in such a
way as to make it hard to access. Small
portable items such as livestock trailers
have yellow wheel clamps and there are
elaborate locks of fuel tanks.
So far these sort of precautions have
not become universally-necessary on the
Island - which is a wonderful tribute to our
slower pace of life and to the generally
friendly communities and villages in
which we live. We are not immune – the
local press has recently carried a story
about sheep rustling and most farmers
will recall losing some tools at one time or
another, but compared to some areas of

the country we are relatively immune from
organised rural crime.
But if we are to keep the Island relatively
free from rural theft perhaps it would
be sensible now for precautions to be
tightened up to make our farms and rural
communities a less-obvious soft target.
The technology is now here to make it
far easier to secure and alarm items and
farmsteads. Movement sensors easily
activate lights and audio alarms and
can even alert your smart phone. Wheel
clamps and locks are much cheaper than
they were and items of kit can be labelled
or tagged to make them much easier
to trace if they go missing. Insurance
companies are keen to assist with advice
which, after all, is much cheaper than
paying out a claim. Forensic marking
using hi-tech products such as ‘smartwater’ or microdots is hard for thieves to
detect but is visible under u.v. light and
traceable back to the owners.
Vandalism, trespass and fly-tipping are
more complex areas to deal with and

prevent. In areas where there are deer
gangs will access land with vehicles,
lamps and dogs and cause a great deal
of damage to crops. With no indigenous
deer the Island is spared that menace,
but it is surprising how many incidences
there are of motorbikes coming onto
farmland. Fly-tipping of everything from
builders waste to mattresses is now a
more-common sight than it was.
Arson is a horrendous crime, thankfully
not common but the damage caused
when a barn is torched can be far more
than the loss of the stored crops - animals
can die too and H