A recent survey has revealed that almost 70 per cent of farmers and business owners have been the victim of rural crime in the last 12 months, with fly-tipping, wildlife crime and theft of equipment being the most common offences.
Describing this rising level of crime as an “epidemic”, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has renewed its calls for a dedicated rural police team in each police force in the UK, as well as increased levels of funding.
The NFU’s comments follow the publication of new figures by the National Rural Crime Network (NRCN), which suggest that the number of crimes going unreported to police is up. According to the NRCN, the results suggest that a third of residents and two-thirds of businesses are not reporting crimes.
A spokesman for the NFU said that there have been some great examples of police forces “getting on the front foot” with their rural policing and it is now time for other forces to follow suit.
He added that the prediction that more than two-thirds of farmers and rural businesses have been victims of crime in the past 12 months shows that appropriate action needs to be taken to ensure farmers can do what they do best, which is producing safe, traceable and affordable food for the nation.
While 69 per cent of those polled said they had actually been a victim of crime, 60 per cent said they were fairly or very worried about becoming a victim of crime in the future, and 48 per cent said their quality of life is being moderately or greatly affected by crime.
Of the crimes committed, 57 per cent reported fly-tipping as their criminal incident, with the average clean-up cost being over £1,000 each time this occurred.
Overall, the financial impact of crime is increasing, with the average cost per offence having gone up by 13 per cent to £4,800 since 2015.