A SWEET shop has appealed for action after suffering a fifth attempted break-in in just three and a half years.

Diane Hart, owner of Kandy Corner in Bacup, found that the door into her shop had been damaged by a would-be burglar. Fortunately she was still able to remain open as usual.

Ms Hart said: “This is the fifth attempted burglary in three and a half years, the first one in 2017 was successful so we fortified the shop but in 2018 we had another break-in where the windows were broken and then they were broken again in October 2019.”

Ms Hart says that the Bankside Lane shop, which opened in 2017, is the culmination of a dream she has followed since childhood but that the persistent crimes have made keeping her dream going harder and harder.

She said: “Although there’s a lot of long-term plans for the future of Bacup, there’s nothing in the short term.

“We’ve got CCTV and everything, but we need an increased police presence.

“We keep hearing about how wonderful it's going to be in the long term but for now we can’t keep going along like this, as I said when I wrote to Jake Berry MP but again I was told to look to the long-term plans.”

However, as devastating as the burglaries have been Ms Hart has been hugely encouraged to see the community in Bacup rally round and offer their support.

Friend and neighbour Freddie Khattab, an ex-police officer who has been doing valuable work across the community include helping renovating St John the Evangelist’s Church, has gone above and beyond by designing a new reinforced door for Kandy Corner, doing so straight away on Monday.

Ms Hart said: “Without the number of messages of support and offers of help from customers friends and family and especially what I call my little customers, the children, I might have had to close.

“It shows that there’s a good community here.”