THIEVES cut their way through fencing before stealing thousands of pounds of tools from seven vans parked in a company compound in Darwen.

Police have described the raid at Greenfingers Landscape Limited in Hall Moss Business Park, off Bolton Road, as ‘planned’ and targeted.

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Officers said the theft happened between midnight and 3am on Saturday and tools taken were electrical gardening equipment, including leaf blowers, hedge cutters and strimmers worth thousands of pounds.

No arrests have been made and no suspect descriptions have been issued.

But police said ‘a number of people’ must have been involved with the raid.

Sgt Dave Sherrington said: “Seven vehicles have been broken in to at Greenfingers Landscape in Bolton Road sometime overnight on Friday going in to Saturday.

“Thousands of pounds of electrical gardening equipment has been taken.

“I believe this was a targeted and planned burglary.

“The thieves have parked a van or some other kind of large vehicle in a nearby carpark, walked through a woodland area, cut a hole in the fencing and broken in to the vans, before leaving the same way.

“We don’t believe anything else was taken at this point.

“There has obviously been more than one person involved.

“I would urge anybody who saw anything suspicious at that time to get in touch. I would be particularly keen to speak to taxi drivers who were travelling on the road between Darwen and Blackburn and may have seen a van in that area to come forward.”

Councillors said they were shocked to hear about the burglary.

Whitehall ward councillor David Foster said: “This area is normally very safe and we certainly haven’t had any major incidents recently.

“This is surprising and worrying.

“I would encourage anyone who saw anything relating to this crime to go to the police.”

Nobody from Greenfingers was available for comment.

Anybody with information is asked to call police on the non-emergency number of 101, quoting log reference LC-20160625-0361.