My scrappy of many years closed down recently. I'd welcome any suggestions from fellow plumbers or electricians as to who they use in the Leicestershire area. Thanks for any help.
There's a little dealers near the timber yard in Syston. Edit:. No idea if the prices are any good - I just know it's there. I think the name is Smith's.
Not sure its sadly really that cash payments have been stopped. A very good bit of legislation as far as I am concerned. Though it hasn't eliminated metal theft by any stretch it has hugely reduced it. We were plagued in the rural midlands by organised gangs targeting all kinds of metals. Even had someone nick our the power lines from pylon to pylon in our village. When the electric board came and put a temporary shipping container sized genny in to keep us powered up, they came back and tried to nick that as well. System works well now. I put the scrap payments from work stuff straight into my business account. When its stuff from home or neighbours I get it put onto a Pockit low balance MasterCard.
Scrap dealers who buy that sort of scrap, still are for cash, so it's not helped at all really. What it has done is made it harder to dodge tax payments.
Not 100% sure you know what you are on about here. Firstly if you produce scrap as part of your business you should be paying tax on that. Nothing wrong in making tax evasion easier to detect. But the banning of cash payments was brought in to introduce a trail to catch those (or deter from initially nicking it) intent on selling stolen scrap. Its not just the cash ban part it is the photocopied ID etc now that deters The system works. Of course some scrap will still be stolen and there are loopholes in the system. The fact (as far as I know) that mobile scrap dealers are still allowed to pay cash is a small but fairly minor issue. If stolen scrap is being disposed of this way then at some point it will enter the chain and will have ID attached. What the legislation has prevented was the epidemic of widespread industrial cable and infrastructure theft continuing. In the past you could nick a few miles of power lines, sling it in a couple of vans, drive it 50 odd miles and get paid out in cash with no questions asked at any one of hundreds of scrapyards. That is a lot more difficult to do now. I can only speak anecdotally regarding metal theft but the news reports of thefts and infrastructure damage are certainly much reduced now.
Point missed. You are saying that the legislation hasn't helped at all. I was just pointing out how the legislation has done what it was intended to do.
I didn't know of Whites, thanks. I know the names of the majority of the others but can anyone recommend any particular ones from their own recent experience please?
I think goldenboy is right in the sense that scrap metal theft may have been reduced and he also says there is nothing wrong with making it easier to detect tax evasion but there is a wider issue. Scrap yards are having to pick up the bill for those changes, it's another example of the government making small business' take responsibility for generating more government revenue and at the same time making small business responsible for reducing national crime statistics.
I am not entirely sure I agree with the idea that its government devolving responsibility. Surely its more about just putting the right framework in place to regulate what was a woefully lax system And for once its not about reducing crime statistics its about reducing actual crime. I love scrapping. Have a corner of the workshop dedicated to it. I find it relaxing stripping stuff down, good exercise and a great additional income stream. Getting paid for a hobby! New regs haven't bothered me at all.
I took some stolen lead to a scrappie. It was stolen from the roof of a property I managed. The Police recovered it and then insisted I collect it from them. I don’t think the money I got covered my time and mileage.
Cant have been a great deal of lead then. Just a shoebox full of lead sheet is worth £20-25 Currently £1k plus a tonne.
Is it ???, better have a rummage around the workshop and garages as I've got lots of off cuts knocking about.
I think it was about £60 for a boot full, but the thieves hadn’t folded it up well and prices were possibly lower then.
Somebody risked his life climbing out of a top flat window to get on the roof, and he and his mates spent lots of time taking the lead down through the window to get something only worth £60. The Police, court and prison costs would have been at least £10K and possibly £50K. And the cost of repairs would be well over £1K.
Definitely worth seeing how much you have. Lead adds up quickly as does my favourite which is brass. I put my lead trimings and offcuts into an old royal mail grey sorting box about 400mm x300mmx 200mm. When I fill that's its about £30.
Lead has a density of 11.34g/cm3. So a 400x300x200mm (24L) block of lead would weigh 271kg. Your box must be about 10% lead and 90% air.
So, you took the stolen lead to the scrappie (stolen from the roof of a property you manage). The police recover it and insist you collect it from them.. Was this some sort of insurance fraud ??