A LARGE quantity of supplies including coal and gas were stolen from a hardware store in Christchurch.

Castles Home Hardware in Bargates was broken into on Thursday, March 11 late in the night.

The thieves, who the owners believe entered via the public car park at the back of the building, stole Supaglo smokeless coal, Lion purple coal, Blaze premium coal, compost and gas.

All of these items were in an outdoor gas store.

Company secretary, Nicky Watson said: "In the whole history of Castles, this has never happened before. It has been a wake up call for us and we have been reviewing our security and installing CCTV cameras, which will be controlled remotely.

"There has been an onslaught of burglaries in this area and it's awful. We were angry and upset after the incident as you do feel violated, but we're going to make sure that it's not going to happen again.

"People feel upset on your behalf as it's an injustice in the community."

According to Nicky, the thieves also tried another store, but luckily that only contained cardboard.

She said: "The thieves took as much as they could carry. Thankfully, we were scheduled to have a coal delivery the next day so that is one thing that did make us smile."

The incident was reported to the police.

A spokesperson from Dorset Police said: "We received a report at 8am on Friday, March 12 2021 that a break-in had occurred overnight involving an outbuilding at Castles Home Hardware in Bargates, Christchurch.

"It was reported that a large quantity of coal had been stolen.

"Enquiries into the matter are ongoing. No arrests have been made at this stage."