Last week (we suspect on the evening of 3rd March 2025), a Polaris Ranger 570 buggy (similar to the pictured one) was stolen from the sanctuary grounds. These lowlifes cut our perimeter fence to gain access to the site, and tyre tracks have been found in our cow field.

This buggy was not only useful for our sanctuary team, for transporting hay, straw and feed out to our fields, but was also a valuable asset to our trading arm, Best Equine & Agricultural Fencing, which will now greatly suffer as a knock-on.

This has been reported to the police, and we are heightening the sanctuary’s security by installing even more CCTV cameras on site. We also have staff members who live on-site.

Following a further inspection of the site this morning, we've discovered 5 areas where our fencing (along with the electric fencing) has been cut down, for what we can only assume is for these vile people to gain access to our site. It appears to be a properly planned operation, with evidence of other machinery being used to gain access.

We have serious concerns for, not only the safety of our animals but our team members who live on-site. Thank goodness our cows were enclosed in their hardstanding area, otherwise they would have been able to walk out straight onto the busy A12.

We're now appealing for the support of the public to help us with the cost of re-securing the sanctuary, including new CCTV cameras across a wider area of the site (which we're already in the process of sorting and they'll be up today), repairing the damaged fences, and also costs towards replacing the stolen buggy.

If anyone has any concrete bollards/blocks or large tree stumps that can be dropped off to us as well, that would be so greatly appreciated (our address is Hopefield Animal Sanctuary, Sawyers Hall Lane, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9BZ).

Please share this appeal far and wide to help a local charity fight back against the awful people who decided to target us.

Thank you so much for your support.