The owners of a Lichfield business say their future is uncertain after thieves stole Christmas stock.
The Cheese Cavern’s refrigerated vehicle containing items ready to be sold over the festive period was taken from outside the owner’s home overnight.
In a post on social media, they said:
“Thanks to the scumbags who stole our van off our drive last night that had our Christmas cheeses in.
“They have have cost us over £20,000 – the last two years have been challenging enough.
“We will struggle to survive this.”
The Cheese Cavern
Other businesses have already rallied round to support the company, with Lichfield Food Festival offering to cover the costs of The Cheese Cavern taking part in the Christmas Food Festival.
The independent company made headlines during the pandemic after offering free produce to NHS workers.
Anyone with information about the vehicle or the stolen products can contact police on 101.
Such a nice shop. So very sad.
Hope all Lichfield people will help out by shopping there.
Just heard an elderly neighbor has had his lovely bench stolen.
We need a lot more police in Lichfield.
Real shame, but its no surprise. They build 5000+ houses in the area and expect there to be no more crime and to have the same number of police? It’s sad, but give it a couple more years and crime here will become significantly worse before it gets any better. The police’s response to crime is “fit CCTV, lock doors, make sure you put things away out of sight”. All the police do is sit in their fancy new building or hide in their cars hoping to catch the odd boy racer. I’ve not seen a policeman on the beat in Lichfield for over 20 years.
5000+ houses!!! How far back have you gone to get to that number? 200 years?
Not seen a copper on the beat for 20 years? Really??? Really really really?
I agree with the post about needing higher visibility policing and much more of it though. We’re becoming a fend for yourself community and that includes looking after our own security.
Two countries with about the same population. UK and France. UK has 20,000 police France 150,000. If they have so many why have we so few
Think the figure of 5000 homes is quite accurate over last 10 years
We are always being told how to keep our houses secure etc. That’s all very well and I am sure we all do our best. Years ago we were promised more bobbies on the beat but this hasn’t happened. They don’t even attend crimes now and are full of excuses why not. In our village we used to have regular police surgeries by local PCSO but not any more. Lots of crime in our village . Are the police using the Smartwater system still? No meetings,no information.
Before Teresa May’s cull of experienced officers and essential backroom staff, there were still issues of staffing and paperwork that needed solving. The cull, gambling on this being a very law-abiding country (check the stats) and possible privatisation (G4S etc) was also predicated on operations being focused on reaction to serious crime in the usual places. Lichfield is a rich target for burglars and thieves, and a rampant drug culture plus domestic violence. None of these are priorities for reactive policing. A lot of coppers have taken early retirement since the cull, as the workload soared relative to allocated staffing. The big losers were domestic violence victims. Minor theft, especially if insured, is a nothing compared to defending someone getting assaulted or murdered by their partner. The ultimate blame lies not with the strength on the force but the politicians at local and national level.
ML – Can you cite sources for your claims of the UK having 20000 police and France having 150000?
According to this
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2021/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2021 there were “135,301 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers
were in post as at 31 March 2021 in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.” So that’s a lot more than your claim for the number of police in the UK and it doesn’t include Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Hello John, What’s the source for the data on domestic violence?
This is such sad news. The Cheese Cavern have some lovely produce.
But some of the nonsense posted at the bottom of these Lichfield Live news stories! Someone (anonymous, of course, above) has confidently asserted that the UK has 20,000 police officers. A simple google search shows it is around 160,000 and rising.
Anyway, I do hope that if anyone has any knowledge regarding this theft they contact the police.
Michael Fabricant; how many police officers do we have in Lichfield? How many police officers do we have in Lichfield overnight? Thank you
“135,301 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers
were in post as at 31 March 2021.” Almost as many as there were in 2009, 144,353.
Who was in government for 11 of those years?
Any nonsense posted at the bottom of these Lichfield Live stories cannot hope to compete with the nonsense spouted in the House of Commons.
How are those Brexit promises going?
Vote Brexit, it’s only twice as bad a s a pandemic.
However many police officers there are nationwide doesn’t tell us why they are thin on the ground in Lichfield.
You seem to not really acknowledge any problems in Lichfield Mr Fabricant.
Mr F the figure you give is Full time equivalent and includes all the staff employed from Chief constable to bottle washers. The only number that is of interest to the public is the ones that walk round and are visible and that does not include the ones with PCSO on their backs
So ML you’re happy to reply to Michael Fabricant with a quibble about his number for his many police there are but you didn’t do anything to support your claim of how many police the UK and France have. Can you explain why you said the UK has 20000 police and France has 150000?
Hopefully the Cheese Cavern has insurance and can source a replacement van and stock in time for the Christmas period …
Bobby I have an interest in seeing real policemen not PCSO,s the last one I saw where I live was about 3 years ago and was a PCSO on an electric bike. We need real ones on the beat
To many people are slagging our m p he can only do so much the local council are the problem plus the local coppers who only want to drive round in b m s get them back on bicycles and foot the copper on the beat is the best
ML – Cool story. Still waiting for you to provide evidence to support the numbers you posted about how many police the UK and France have though. I would also accept you admitting you were wrong.