SIX stolen off-road vehicles were discovered by police at two locations in Evesham – with officers now urging owners to make extra security precautions.

Three scrambler motorbikes, two Honda quad bikes and one Polaris Ranger were found on March 9 at locations in North Littleton and Cleeve Prior.

Officers from Evesham Safer Neighbourhood Teams were acting on intelligence they had received that stolen quad bikes were being stored the two sites.

Sergeant Steven Tandy said: “Quad bike theft is an increasing crime trend in our local area.

“Offenders target small vehicles which are easy to steal from rural locations late at night where there is generally no CCTV and there are unlikely to be any witnesses to the crime.”

He said owners of similar vehicles should “review the security of where the vehicle is kept and how it is secured”.

All of the vehicles recovered on March 9 were confirmed as being stolen from people local to the Evesham and Pershore area.

Sgt Tandy described the recovery as a “great result for the victims who lost their property because all of the vehicles should be able to be returned to their rightful owners and they are in a good state of repair”.

“Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police are dedicated to investigating and locating these stolen vehicles and prosecuting the offenders.”

The sergeant added that while police are “dedicated” to investigating and locating these stolen vehicles as well as prosecuting offenders, “we can’t do it alone”.

“Although police have stepped up their response to this type of crime in the recent weeks we still need people to come forward to help us deter and detect offenders.”

For advice on how to install CCTV, security lights or use smart water, you can contact your local Safer Neighbourhood Team by visiting westmercia.police.uk/myarea and inputting your postcode.

Anybody who has any information that could help the investigation is asked to contact 101, quoting incident reference 734S of March 12.