Directors of a long-established, family building company have slammed thieves who stole a digger and trailer in a daylight raid.
A large padlocked wooden gate was ripped off its hinges before the digger was loaded onto the trailer and driven away in an unknown vehicle.
The items, along with the digger buckets, are estimated to be worth more than £11,000.
They were stolen from a secure field at the back of a property on Church Lane and driven onto Christmas Lane in Oulton Broad at about 2.15pm on Friday, October 23.
Carl Bagshaw, director of Bagshaw Builders of Lowestoft, said the theft was “a big loss” that had a wider impact on the work they carried out.
Mr Bagshaw, who is one of three directors of the building firm with his dad George and brother Steve, said: “The digger and trailer were our only ones – so it is a big loss.
“It is not just a monetary thing though – it is the impact of everything. It has a detrimental effect on work with things you take for granted being taken away from you.
“The digger is worth about £9,500, the trailer a couple of thousand – but to replace them new costs about £21,000.
“It is a big loss that we are still feeling – the hassle, the inconvenience of not having those items for the work when we need them.”
The business has been operating around Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Beccles and the surrounding ares for 46 years.
Mr Bagshaw, 47, from Lowestoft, said: “We were out and about on another site, with the digger and trailer parked up right at the back of a field along with the digger buckets. It was gated and bolted up – but these very brazen thieves broke into the field, got into the digger and started it.
“They then would have had to get the digger bucket out to move it and hitched the trailer up to get the digger on top.”
Mr Bagshaw said a large vehicle would have been needed to tow the trailer and digger out onto Christmas Lane, opposite Oulton Broad Primary School, which “would have been very busy” just before the school run.
He urged people to come forward with any possible sightings of the digger and trailer.
Call Lowestoft police, quoting crime reference 37/61726/20, on 101.
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