Lead worth £5,000 stolen from Telford church roof
Friday 18th February 2011, 8:30PM GMT.
Thieves have stolen more than £5,000 worth of lead from a church roof in Shropshire.
The discovery was only made on Wednesday when the warden at the Holy Trinity Church in Coalbrookdale, near Ironbridge, noticed water leaking through the ceiling.
Denise Wakefield, spokeswoman for Telford police, said about 40ft of lead had been removed from the roof.
She said: “The churchwarden noticed that water had started to leak into the building on Wednesday.
“After looking further into the matter, it was discovered that a substantial amount of lead had been taken from the roof. It is believed to have been stolen sometime during the last week.
“It is likely that thieves would have had to climb on the outside of the church as nobody had access inside the tower.”
She added police were now investigating the theft.
“If you saw or heard anything suspicious or have been offered a large amount of lead in unusual circumstances, then we would like to hear from you,” she added.
Anyone with information can call Telford police on 0300 333300 or call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 08000 555111.
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OK, I’m the first to say that I know nothing about roofs, so call me naive, but why do churches still put lead on their roofs?
My house doesn’t have lead on it and it’s still watertight.
And if lead has a specific function, could this not be fulfilled by replacing the lead with a more up to date product like resins or sheets of some type of thick plastic like in garden ponds?
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They don’t necessarily still put lead on the roof, chances are that this has been on there since it was built, which was at a time when committing such crimes would have seen the miscreants looking forward to eternity in a very warm place with a tyrant in charge, and I don’t mean a certain middle-east country.
A synthetic alternative is available but tends to be more expensive than lead, so it’s down to the insurers to decide whether they’ll risk another expensive payday further down the line.
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Thank you for your explanation, Simon.
With lead being the star performing commodity metal of the last 12 months and probably due to perform well for the next 12, I would hope that any insurer would see the folly of putting it back on roofs when there’s a synthetic version available.
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