TEESSIDE SCAFFOLDER
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A Black Country scrap metal firm is supporting the petition to make cash transactions for metal illegal.
The petition has so far gained nearly 40,000 signatures, and is also supported by Walsall Council.
Peter Hackett, director at WH Marren, a fourth generation family business in Temple Bar, Willenhall, today said the proposal would help improve the image of the industry by scuppering unscrupulous merchants and help to give a “true reflection” of how the trade works.
He said: “Anything that gives a true reflection of the industry will be a good thing. The problem of metal theft is not an industry problem, it’s a police issue because it’s theft, pure and simple.
“It wouldn’t affect us because we buy very little scrap metal from members of the public.”
Mr Hackett took the Express & Star behind the scenes to find out how a legitimate businesses in the Black Country operates.
He distanced the company from the traditional image of scrap merchants, saying it was a sophisticated business which sold to three continents and required a highly skilled workforce, turning over more than £62 million a year.
The vast majority of the metal brought to the site is bought commercially, sorted and compacted before being sold on to other businesses to transform it into anything from propellers to car parts to radiators.
WH Marren has been operating at its Temple Bar site for 110 years and currently employs 45 people, from manual labourers to multi-lingual sales workers.
Jon Marren, managing director at the site, said: “People view scrap metal merchants as people who go about the streets and pick up a bit of tat and weigh it in for money.
“We do get people coming in with a bit of scrap, but we have known them for years.”
The firm deals with all kinds of metal which is cast off as waste, including brass shavings produced when bolts are made, aluminium foil, steel off cuts during the construction of machiner.
It used to take in waste metal from cannabis factory paraphernalia brought to them by the police, and a tiny proportion of the business takes in waste metals from members of the public.
The metal is sorted through and packed up, in many cases compacted in bales to be sold on to companies who use furnaces to melt it down and use it to make a whole spectrum of metal products.
The petition to make the metal recycling industry a cashless trade has reached 39,695. The petition, found at Cashless Scrap Metal Trade - Amendment to Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 - e-petitions needs to reach 100,000 by August to be debated in Parliament.
The demands to make every transaction go through a bank account have come about after hundreds of metal thefts across the Black Country saw everything from copper cable to door handles stolen. Rising cost of scrap metal has sent thefts of copper and lead soaring across the West Midlands, with war memorials, churches and even traffic light cables targeted.
Thieves are thought to be striking more than 15 times a day in the region. The crisis has seen thousands of motorists on the M6 at Walsall delayed after cables connecting signs and CCTV cameras were stolen.
A worker at a Wednesbury-based building contractor was given a 12-week prison term after stealing seven tons of scaffolding from his employer and selling it to a scrap metal firm in Oldbury.
Stephen Green, 42, made just £1,200 from his venture, a fraction of the £7,000 value of the metal.
Read more: Metal firm banks on scrapping cash deals « Express & Star
The petition has so far gained nearly 40,000 signatures, and is also supported by Walsall Council.
Peter Hackett, director at WH Marren, a fourth generation family business in Temple Bar, Willenhall, today said the proposal would help improve the image of the industry by scuppering unscrupulous merchants and help to give a “true reflection” of how the trade works.
He said: “Anything that gives a true reflection of the industry will be a good thing. The problem of metal theft is not an industry problem, it’s a police issue because it’s theft, pure and simple.
“It wouldn’t affect us because we buy very little scrap metal from members of the public.”
Mr Hackett took the Express & Star behind the scenes to find out how a legitimate businesses in the Black Country operates.
He distanced the company from the traditional image of scrap merchants, saying it was a sophisticated business which sold to three continents and required a highly skilled workforce, turning over more than £62 million a year.
The vast majority of the metal brought to the site is bought commercially, sorted and compacted before being sold on to other businesses to transform it into anything from propellers to car parts to radiators.
WH Marren has been operating at its Temple Bar site for 110 years and currently employs 45 people, from manual labourers to multi-lingual sales workers.
Jon Marren, managing director at the site, said: “People view scrap metal merchants as people who go about the streets and pick up a bit of tat and weigh it in for money.
“We do get people coming in with a bit of scrap, but we have known them for years.”
The firm deals with all kinds of metal which is cast off as waste, including brass shavings produced when bolts are made, aluminium foil, steel off cuts during the construction of machiner.
It used to take in waste metal from cannabis factory paraphernalia brought to them by the police, and a tiny proportion of the business takes in waste metals from members of the public.
The metal is sorted through and packed up, in many cases compacted in bales to be sold on to companies who use furnaces to melt it down and use it to make a whole spectrum of metal products.
The petition to make the metal recycling industry a cashless trade has reached 39,695. The petition, found at Cashless Scrap Metal Trade - Amendment to Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 - e-petitions needs to reach 100,000 by August to be debated in Parliament.
The demands to make every transaction go through a bank account have come about after hundreds of metal thefts across the Black Country saw everything from copper cable to door handles stolen. Rising cost of scrap metal has sent thefts of copper and lead soaring across the West Midlands, with war memorials, churches and even traffic light cables targeted.
Thieves are thought to be striking more than 15 times a day in the region. The crisis has seen thousands of motorists on the M6 at Walsall delayed after cables connecting signs and CCTV cameras were stolen.
A worker at a Wednesbury-based building contractor was given a 12-week prison term after stealing seven tons of scaffolding from his employer and selling it to a scrap metal firm in Oldbury.
Stephen Green, 42, made just £1,200 from his venture, a fraction of the £7,000 value of the metal.
Read more: Metal firm banks on scrapping cash deals « Express & Star
