Media centre

Monday 15 Apr 2013

Impact of cable theft across the south and south west of England reduced

Region & Route:

| Southern: Wessex

| Southern

Passengers across the south and south west of England are benefiting from fewer delays caused by cable thieves as a result of ongoing work to tackle metal theft on the railway, new figures reveal.

Network Rail, its railway partners and organisations from other essential infrastructure industries have worked together to tackle metal theft which, at its peak, caused more than 6,000 hours worth of delays to trains nationally in a single year.

 

In 2011/12 across the south and south west of England there were 18,443 delay minutes caused by cable theft, costing Network Rail £796,272. In 2012/13, those figures have reduced to 3,034 delay minutes, costing £117,837

 

Tim Shoveller, managing director of the Network Rail and South West Trains Alliance which operate the railway in the south and south west of England, said: “These figures are great news for passengers. The improvements we have seen are down to a number of factors, including British Transport Police targeting thieves and the scrap dealers buying stolen metal.

 

“We’ve worked with suppliers and other industries to make metal – particularly our cables – harder to steal and easier to identify and had teams around the network looking at new ways of working to reduce delay and fix thefts more quickly. The introduction of new laws, following our work with other industries to explain the need for change to government, will make a real difference in continuing to stifle the market for stolen metal. We are not complacent though and will continue to do all we can to reduce these figures even further.”

 

It is hoped that the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013, which was passed by Parliament earlier this year and is due to come into force in the autumn, will provide a further boost to the rail industry’s efforts to clamp down on cable thieves.

 

The new law targets rogue scrap metal dealers who trade in stolen metal, bringing in mandatory licensing of scrap metal dealers and outlawing cash payments for metal.