UPDATED: Allotment holders consider giving up after sheds ransacked by thieves
Devastated allotment holders are considering giving up their lovingly-tended plots after a large number of sheds were broken into and ransacked by thieves in Heckington.
The plots on the Boston Road allotment site in the village were targeted overnight on Sunday to Monday say police.
Sleaford Neighbourhood Policing Team are currently investigating and said: “Locks have been cut, sheds have been ransacked, and high value items have been taken.
“If anyone has any information or is a witness to this crime please call Lincolnshire Police on 101 quoting crime number: 22000045853.”
The allotments are owned by Heckington Parish Council and the clerk Julie Hudson said the tenants were devastated.
She said: “They got in through the main gates which had a heavy duty padlock on it but they came equipped with an angle grinder.
“Pretty much every shed was broken into. I would say about 50 per cent of tenants had nothing taken, but the thieves went for the usual mechanical equipment and small hand tools.”
A former allotment holder herself, she commented: “It is such a shame. People work hard down there. We always warn people not to keep anything expensive down there, just in case, but it is so sad - some have said they are going to pack it in. It is just disheartening after all the work they put in.”
Mrs Hudson and council chairman Jan Palmer have been dealing with the police and tenants and heightened security will be considered at the upcoming council meeting on Monday, as well as reporting the damage.