Shropshire Star comment: Insurers are busier than cops

That can only mean that the levels of officially recorded crime are understating the true scale of the problem.

But there is one group to whom rural folk are reporting their crimes – the insurers. And the figures from the annual crime report from NFU Mutual show an astonishing increase in the cost of rural crime in Shropshire.

In 2016, the value of the crimes totalled £717,000. Last year it had risen to over £1 million.

This cannot be explained by an increase in petty theft and minor cases of criminal damage.

This is crime being taken to a new level of professionalism in which an emerging breed of organised crooks have their eye on Shropshire as somewhere with plentiful high value items which can be whisked away by trailer, pick up, or van.

When offenders are brought before the courts – a sadly rather rare occurrence – it will often turn out they have travelled many miles to come to Shropshire, a land they seem to see a place of easy pickings.

Agricultural vehicles can cost the earth these days, and the NFU Mutual data points to them being stolen to the tune of £5.9 million.

The media has started to talk of Wild West Britain because of all the knife crime, muggings, and assaults in urban areas which are sparking fears that things are spiralling out of control on our streets.

Here on our rural doorstep we have Wild West Mercia where the outlaws know the sheriffs are a long way away and will take a long time to arrive, by which time they are quite probably already out of the county with their plunder.

Things are getting so desperate that farmers are building what are in effect moats to try to protect their properties.

The poor police are pulled in so many different directions these days.

But it is self evident that more needs to be done and police need to show farmers and the rural community through actions and results that dealing with rural crime is a priority, rather than an afterthought.