FOI 379132

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 379132

I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 19^th December 2024. Please find below the response to your request:

Please provide data on the number of crime reports received by your force which refer to the theft of a heat pump from a residential property in both (a) 2023 and (b) 2024.

For clarity, the term ‘heat pump’ refers to the new generation of domestic central heating systems which feature a piece of heat exchange equipment installed in the external area of a property.

Reply

West Mercia Police hold the information requested.

Caveat: There is no specific offence for theft of a heat pump, a search was carried out on the offence group Residential Burglary of a Dwelling Whilst there is a separate field for recording of stolen property this is not mandatory and not regularly used by West Mercia Police, further to this whilst there is a Property Code Level 2 of Heating, none of the Level 3 codes are relevant to a heat pump. Therefore a keyword search of the incident summaries to find these results has been carried out.

Please note that the three offences that have been identified as relevant have all taken place on building sites, all sites were building residential dwellings but none of them were inhabited at the time. Where multiple thefts are reported at the same time, if the victim is the same then only one investigation is recorded. For these offences multiple building plots were targeted on each occasion but as the victim was the building company only one crime has been recorded for each site.