Water giant Severn Trent is to spend £27,000 to protect its sites with a revolutionary crime-fighting liquid made by a Shropshire firm, following nearly £1 million worth of burglaries and thefts.

Telford-based Smartwater has been asked to help Severn Trent tackle the spiralling burglary threat by marking property with its hi-tech fluid.

The substance makes it easier for the police to identify both the stolen goods and the thieves.

The SmartWater product, already widely used by police, neighbourhood watch groups and domestic property owners, is odourless and invisible and has a track record for reducing burglary by up to five times the national average.

Fraser Pithie, Severn Trent senior operations manager, said: “We, like other major infrastructure owners, have received an increase in attention from criminals, particularly stealing metal items for scrap value.

“We have been looking at ways of making our sites less vulnerable and finding smarter ways of tracking down those responsible for the thefts, which is when we came across the SmartWater product.

“All items at our sites are now marked with the SmartWater product, which is invisible to the naked eye but visible under UV lights.

“Simply, items taken from Severn Trent Water sites can be identified and traced back to a specific site; so criminals need to be aware that by working closely with the police services in our area, we are playing our part in preventing crime and detecting those responsible for committing it.”

Phil Cleary, SmartWater chief executive, said: “SmartWater is well known to the criminal fraternity as it has successfully been used to convict more than 600 offenders to date. SmartWater also maintains a 100 per cent conviction rate, having never lost a case when SmartWater evidence has been presented in court.”