Local charity hit by vehicle theft

Thursday, 30 September 2021 01:00

Salisbury-based humanitarian response charity Serve On has suffered a serious
setback after thieves stole the wheels from its new kit van.

The crime took place at around 11.30pm on Monday night while the van, bought with help from the National Lottery, was parked in the car park of the Entrain Space training facility for military veterans at Wilton.

Police are investigating, and studying CCTV footage.

The charity told Love Salisbury that as well as the likely cost of insurance excesses and increased premiums which the charity can ill afford, the loss of the kit van until the wheels can be replaced will severely limit Serve On’s ability to respond to local needs, to train, or to move the charity’s equipment and volunteers.

Serve On Operations Director said, “This van is vital to our role as we use it to
transport all of our equipment.

"Serve On is a charity which not only provides highly-trained flood rescue teams, to respond both locally and nationally, a dog search team and an international response team ready to deploy to major disasters, but boosts local community resilience in so many other ways.

"We have worked tirelessly through the Covid-19 pandemic supporting our local
communities.

"Serve On volunteers distributed millions of items of PPE to front line workers, care homes, public sector and schools and carried out more than 4,000 welfare checks on vulnerable residents. We also distributed food to those who needed it the most, and supported the vaccination roll-out and Covid testing in our local areas.

"Without our vehicle we are severely hampered in the support we can give to the local community”.

Anyone with any information is encouraged to inform the police.

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