Pictured: Nick Stevens, Director, LS Telematics, with the new CCL Sentry

LS Telematics, a new Nottingham-based electronic design and manufacturing company, has spent several months working on ways of combating cable and metal theft problems and have developed a high-tech solution that uses the latest in wireless mobile phone technology.

Railway networks, electricity and telecoms companies can now protect vital systems quickly and easily with a simple-to-use alarm and monitoring system. This product can communicate directly with an alarm receiving and monitoring centre, or alternatively with any mobile phone.

As the price of copper and other metals continues to rise during these tough economic times the theft of these items has become a major source of disruption for many throughout the UK. Metal theft is costing the UK around £770m a year and thieves are prepared to put themselves and the public at serious risk of injury and even death to hack through cables for a few pounds of copper.

LS Telematics Director, Nick Stevens, comments: "The UK is struggling to cope with the impacts associated with this wave of crime and disruption but we have developed an effective and easy-to-use solution to help combat these problems and provide an immediate warning of any unlawful activity. We believe LS Telematics products can have a major impact on the reduction in this type of crime and reduce the serious disruption and knock-on effects these types of crimes create."

The extent of this behaviour is wreaking havoc on Britain's infrastructure with the disruption caused to electricity supplies, communication networks and transport systems. In the rail industry alone it was recently announced that Network Rail has forked out a whopping £16.5m to replace stolen cable sections. They have seen an increase in theft of 52% in the last year and subsequent delays amounting to over 6,000 hours.