Lower Sydenham Station/Kangley Bridge Road car crime warning

I posted this on the SE23Life forum and was asked to post it here too (I wasn’t a member of this one or I would have already)

If anyone uses Lower Sydenham station and parks their car in Kangley Bridge Road (which has no parking restrictions) near Screwfix, please note that every day someone is stealing parts off cars parked along there. Yesterday there was a car with both rear lights stolen, a man whose front grill was hanging off and I think a headlight gone - couldn’t see because he was taking photos of the damage and another with rear bumper gone. This has been going on for months and months. I picked up a Zipcar VW Polo there a few weeks back and someone had taken the wing mirror covers off of that. I’ve seen dozens of cars along there with parts stolen so beware. These lights cost a fortune hence stealing them is big business.

Thanks

Note this happened to us in the last year outside our house over night without anyone hearing anything. Just clips and screws hold all of this on once the bonnet is opened.

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That is horrendous @timmo44. Sorry you had to go through this

It must take the robbers a long time to dismantle the car, so sure there must be witnesses. Or CCTV footage? I know Ring doorbells record video outside your house, and share it with neighbours in the event of crime like this. Maybe an option if this happens frequently.

No they can take the front off like this in 5 minutes. They stole a few from Ancaster Fiat’s yard down by Homebase too. Note in my picture all the screws were on the floor around the car - they were well organised. I now have an alarm on the car and a CCTV camera pointing at it.

Also even if I had the thieves on camera, the police won’t investigate or even attend. “are you insured?” is all they wanted to know and then gave me a crime number.

I’m aware it’s not the crime of the century, but i’ve reported it to 101 none the less in the hope something gets done with the more crimes that are reported - we had our windscreen wipers stolen at some point over the last 5 days from our car on Kangley Bridge Road. Timmo44 - awful what happened to you.