Immobilise Scheme for property security

Carmarthenshire Police Neighbourhood Development Team and Carmarthenshire Community Safety Partnership are working together with retailers to get electrical items registered at the point of purchase.

Starting on Wednesday December 3, retailers will give customers the opportunity to register their new electrical and valuable items and have them recorded and uploaded onto the national property registration site www.immobilise.com for free.

Registration forms for www.immobilise.com accounts will be completed within the store with customers before being put online by Dyfed Powys Police officers. Once registered with an account the owners will then have the opportunity to add further property onto that account.

There will be a series of roadshows across the county to promote the new scheme.

Immobilise is an online property registration system used by all UK police forces and second hand dealers to check whether property that is recovered or offered for sale that they come in contact with is stolen. If so it allows them to return it to the owners and also assists in bringing offenders to justice who are in possession of the property.

The scheme is being rolled out to tackle the issue of victims not being able to provide full details of their property when it is lost or stolen. In addition it is hoped it will assist the police in bring those responsible for stealing property and handling the property to justice.

Police Sergeant Darren Moore said: “Over the past few years we have adopted a very successful partnership with Carmarthenshire Community Safety Partnership and attended community events encouraging members of the public to take measures registering and securing their property.

“This has been reasonably successful, but by registering the property at the point of purchase it is hoped that even more people will benefit from being signed up to www.immobilise.com.

“We have currently rolled this initiative out for cycles with Halfords in Llanelli and Carmarthen and are confident our decision to expand the initiative to the other retailers will benefit all in our commitment to prevent crime.”

Community Safety Manager Kate Thomas said: “Carmarthenshire CSP is supporting Immobilise and we have provided funding for registration cards and stickers for the scheme.”

Council executive board member for community safety Cllr Pam Palmer said: “I would urge customers to register with Immobilise to increase the chance of having their property back if it is stolen.

“It is an excellent scheme and I look forward to it being made available more widely.”

There will be roadshows from 9am to 5pm on Wednesday (December 3) at Parc Trostre; Friday (December 5) in Ammanford Town Centre; Wednesday December 10 in Carmarthen town centre; Thursday December 11 at Parc Trostre and the St Elli Centre; on Friday December 12 in Ammanford Town Centre; Wednesday December 17 at Parc Trostre and the St Elli Centre; Friday December 19 at Parc Trostre, and Monday December 22 in Carmarthen town centre.