More than £20,000 worth of quad bikes and power tools have been stolen from Lancaster Park & Farm leaving staff left ‘struggling’ to repair damage and unable to complete their tasks.
Staff at the popular Oldham attraction were taken aback when CCTV footage showed thieves had scoped the site the night before.
Lily Lancaster, the farm’s owner, has appealed for any information that could lead to the identity of the men.
Speaking to The Oldham Times, Lily said: “It’s not nice to think somebody has come in and been in our space.
“All of us on the farm work really, really hard – we’re not a huge company.
“We work really hard to make things work and get everything done, and you just get some scumbags coming in, taking what they want, and destroying what they want in the process.”
As well as power tools, two Yamaha Grizzly 700 quad bikes – worth over £10,000 each – were stolen by the four unidentified men.
The vehicles were used to run the farm’s caterpillar ride, as well as to complete jobs around the 25-acre (10 hectares) farm.
Lily said: “We would like, ideally, to have the quads back. We would like to see justice prevail.”
Staff were building an alpaca run and repainting benches in advance of the busy summer holiday period – but work has now been disrupted.
Lily continued: “We had so many plans coming up this week that we wanted to get sorted for summer.
“When they’ve taken the quads, John and David, my brothers, were unable to carry on with the tasks that we’ve got planned – like making the alpaca runs – because they had to fix up where they’ve broken in.
“Then, because we had no quads staff couldn’t get on with their everyday jobs, like cleaning and feeding. That took them a lot longer because we didn’t have the equipment.
“John and David were struggling to fix everything up because they’ve taken a load of our power tools – so we couldn’t even get the jobs done.”
Lily said she checked the CCTV system, which was installed just one month ago, after the break-in was first noticed in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Lily said: “When I downloaded it for the police, I could hear what they were saying, and I thought ‘this man has come in and he’s looked specifically where keys are kept’ and on a later video he’s talking to his friends and saying: ‘Not there! Where are they?’ – which I thought was weird.
“So, he’s not come in randomly – we had left the quad keys hung up there for a few days, but on Wednesday a staff member had moved them to where they should be.
“I decided to scour back through the CCTV and lo-and-behold, I find that in the early hours of Wednesday morning they’d already been in – so they came in twice. The first time they were just chancing.”
According to Lily, the men had Oldham/Rochdale accents, rather than sounding Mancunian.
Greater Manchester Police has been contacted for comment.
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