Shoplifting is so out of control in a UK town but police “can do nothing about it”.

Bridgend in Wales has seen a 103 percent rise in shop thefts – steeper than any other area of the country. A shopkeeper is on the verge of quitting as her town grapples with the surge in shoplifting.

Kam Hayer, who has run the Premier shop in Bridgend's Coity Road for 12 years, told Wales Online: "It has increased horrendously. The repeat offenders keep coming back and the police do not have the resources to do anything.

“It's not the police's fault. We are looking to finish with the business now. It's not like it used to be. When my phone rings and I'm not on the premises I think: 'What's happened now?'"

Data from the Office for National Statistics shows 1,229 shoplifting incidents were reported in Bridgend in the year ending March 2024, more than double the 606 from the previous year.

Bridgend had the seventh-highest percentage rise across more than 300 parts of England and Wales.

Mrs Hayer, 56, runs the Coity Road shop with her husband and employs five staff. She said the "ridiculous" shoplifting levels have recently been as frequent as an incident per day. She estimates that around £400 worth of items are being stolen from the business each week. Despite having CCTV she can only remember about three cases that resulted in convictions during her 12 years at the shop. Recently she has mostly given up reporting thefts "because we know nothing will be done".

As high as Bridgend's reported shoplifting figures are, they are likely to be even higher in reality. Mrs Hayer and another local trader said they had largely stopped reporting the crime.

"The police can't come in every day," said Mrs Hayer. "It's not a priority. The only times they came here in person was when we had someone threatening to kill us and when there was racial abuse. Otherwise, we report it online and we don't hear from them again. Or we send them CCTV and they say their facial recognition doesn't recognise the person."

Mrs Hayer has noticed a major increase in thefts since the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. She has been forced to increase prices to cover the business' inflating costs. Some of the commonly stolen items, like chocolate and pasties, are taken by people who are desperately struggling with poverty, Mrs Hayer believes.

But she says frequently targeted products also include items like coffee, which is likely sold on, and alcohol. "It's not so bad when people are taking food because they are finding it hard but a lot of alcohol gets stolen," she said.

"After lockdown we mostly stopped reporting it," Mrs Hayer added. "If someone is threatening or abusing my staff I take it further. One chap is really bad and nothing has been done. He's racially abusive and when he's shoplifting he says: 'You can't stop me.' We've even given up on reporting him.

"There was another one from about a year and a half ago who told our staff he had a knife and then stole things. Police followed it up and found him. He wrote a letter of apology and police said: 'We don't think he's a danger.' And that was it.

"It's not fair on my staff. We're thinking of closing down or selling because it's not as enjoyable as it used to be. We are providing a service and it is too much stress."

Another Bridgend shopkeeper said he had also noticed a definite increase in crime. Popular choices for thieves, he said, have included pet food, coffee, and alcohol. "There are quite a few repeat offenders," he added.

"The PCSOs are good around here and they're always popping in but some of these people have to be caught 20-odd times before anything happens to them. It's got to be persistent offending for them to go to jail. When it's the same people being reported over and over again and they are still coming in it does get frustrating.

"Whether they get caught depends how good the CCTV is and whether police recognise them. The amount of shoplifting varies massively but you could lose hundreds of pounds' worth of items in a given month. We don't get a lot of instances but when we do it's high value."

Bridgend is far from alone in its shoplifting crisis. The offence has hit a record high across England and Wales where the latest year saw a record 444,000 reports of the crime – a 30 percent increase on the previous year and the highest since records began 20 years ago.

In the King’s Speech last month the UK's new government promised to clamp down on the problem with a crime and policing bill to “introduce stronger measures to tackle low-level shoplifting” as well as creating a specific criminal offence for assaulting a shop worker.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “We can’t carry on like this. This Labour government will put neighbourhood police back on the beat in our town centres with stronger laws on knife crime, shoplifting, and assaults on shop workers to keep our communities safe.”