Family business suffers £30,000 vandal strike

A FAMILY business is counting the cost of three crippling attacks.

Sara Clark, of Clark and Company Forestry Management, says the attacks on equipment have brought work for Rother District Council at Levetts Wood, Sidley, and for High Woods Preservation Society to a standstill.

She says the knock-on effect will cost the company she and her husband Wesley run an estimated 30,000.

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They are offering a 500 reward to bring the vandals to justice.

"We have had two machines burnt out - one at Levetts Wood and the other in the High Woods. Another was damaged when someone tried to steal it."

A three-tonne mini-excavator (pictured) being used in the High Woods was burnt out. The machine was only a year old and valued at 14,000. A JCB was damaged when someone tried to steal it from Levetts Wood.

The last straw came when a logging vehicle was set on fire in the Levetts Wood on Saturday night. Sara said: "We have lost a lot of money as a result of all this. It means we can't work at the moment and the loss will be about 30,000."

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The company obtained a 50 per cent grant for Rother council for the management of council-owned Levetts Wood.

"We got the council quite a few thousand pounds worth of grant to do the work.

"We are undertaking about a hectare of coppicing there. All the wood that has been felled is being saved to make post-and-rail fencing for the site plus picnic tables and benches.

"It was supposed to be three months work but at the moment we have no way of finishing it."

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The company had also obtained a 2,000 Forestry Commission grant for High Woods Preservation Society for woodland management work there.

Sara Clark said the firm was now waiting to hear from its insurers.

"But even this is going to have a knock-on effect. We pay a 600-a-month premium now for insurance because this has to include public liability cover of 10m.

"We also have to pay for a specialist oil-cleaning firm to clear up the hydraulic oil and diesel that has been spilled."

Anyone with information about the attacks is asked to contact PC Steve Croft at Bexhill police station on 0845 6070999.

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