Copper theft costing WA millions as criminals steal estimated 15,000m of cabling in Perth
WA's Main Roads department says copper theft is increasing by the year. (Supplied)
In short:
Thieves have stolen an estimated 15,000 metres of cabling from light poles on a principal shared path in Mirrabooka.
Main Roads WA estimates it spends $2-$3 million a year replacing stolen cabling and says theft is increasing.
What's next?
The department has taken various measures to try and prevent theft but says the criminals "just seem to be one step ahead of us".
Thieves have stolen an estimated 15,000 metres of cabling from light-poles along a path in the Perth suburb of Mirrabooka.
Main Roads says the theft of cables, valuable for the copper inside, is an ongoing problem that costs millions of dollars per year to remediate.
Acting director of metropolitan operations James Pinnington said the latest hit had taken out a 1.8-kilometre stretch of lighting for a principal shared path in Mirrabooka.
"At the moment our crews have gone out and made [the area] safe … and they're just in the process of trying to quantify how much cable's been stolen and then looking at a plan to try and remediate the damage," Mr Pinnington told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth.
He said the thieves had left significant damage in their wake.
"There's bits of cable sort of being cut and stripped and left lying around and it's quite a time-consuming process to go across all of the different pits, where our cables come in and out of, to try and determine what has been damaged and what needs to be replaced," Mr Pinnington said.
Loading...He said it was an ongoing problem across the Main Roads network.
"We're probably looking at around 800,000 metres of cable stolen over the last five or six years and that's having a widespread impact across the network, in terms of lighting being out," he said.
"Obviously the cost to replace is really starting to rack up as well.
"At the moment, probably $2 million to $3 million a year worth of cable replacement is required.
"It's hard to really quantify, because at the moment the amount of cable being stolen year on year is increasing."
Lighting along Perth's network of shared paths has been targeted by copper thieves. (Supplied: Main Roads WA)
'Hitting some brick walls'
Mr Pinnington said the cable at the Mirrabooka path would be replaced, but thieves often took the opportunity to revisit sites and steal the replacement cabling.
"We're in the process of trialling a number of different methods to prevent the cable being re-stolen," he said.
"At the moment we're really hitting some brick walls with that.
"We make some changes and, unfortunately, these thieves are well-motivated and well-prepared and they're figuring out ways to get around what we're doing in terms of reducing that risk."
Mr Pinnington said copper thieves often targeted locations hard to see from the roadway, came prepared and sometimes wore clothing that suggested they were legitimate maintenance workers.
Lockable lids for the pits have not been successful at keeping cabling secure.
Main Roads has been talking with WA Police about the thefts, but said theft was hard to prevent because there were so many power poles across the network.
"It's very hard to be everywhere all at once and I guess the people that are doing this just seem to be one step ahead of us at the moment," Mr Pinnington said.