Brazen thieves has used a digger machine to rip a cash machine from the side of a Nationwide building society in the centre of Ashby in an early morning raid on Monday, July 10.
The theft took place at roughly 3.09am in Market Street, with Leicestershire police saying that the digger caused extensive damage to the building.
The road was completely shut off until around 11.45am. Ashby Councillor John Coxon has labelled the raid as a "disgusting and brazen crime" as he called for bollards to be installed to stop such raids.
Councillor Coxon said: "It goes to show just how vulnerable some of these banking properties are. We've got to start looking at some sort of security bollards to protect these buildings, at least the banks should.
“Ashby is such a popular and busy town centre, in part because Market Street is one of the few town centre thoroughfares where traffic and people can still flow quite freely. People are shocked and many businesses haven’t bothered opening up this morning.
“It’s a disgusting and brazen crime that will have a financial impact in the whole town centre.”
Police forensics teams and council inspectors both spent time at the building society inspecting the damage throughout the day. A spokesman from Nationwide told our sister title, the Leicester Mercury that they were unable to comment on the incident because of police involvement.
But they did say they were looking to get the branch up and running as soon as possible, adding: “We recognise this is an inconvenience to customers.”
Shoppers and passers-by described the scene as a wreck and that it “looks like a smash and grab.”
A Leicestershire Police spokesman has appealed for people with any information to come forward as soon as possible.
They said: “Enquiries into the incident are in their very early stage.
“If anyone witnessed the theft or saw any vehicles arriving or leaving the area at the time of the incident, we’d like to speak to you.”
Anyone with any information is being asked to call 101, and quote incident 35 of 10 July.
