Halfords Group PLC (LSE:HFD), the bike retailer, is dishing out £60,000 over the next two years to help police in the UK fight shoplifting.
Joining retail peers like Tesco, John Lewis and Sainsbury, the London-listed firm’s donation will help fund police analysts and intelligence officers who fight organised shoplifting gangs.
Project Pegasus, the police’s action plan to tackle the crime, was launched after a shoplifting epidemic swept through the UK and led to several retail bosses calling for government support.
“Shoplifting has unfortunately become much more common over the past couple of years, and we want to do everything that we can to help our colleagues feel safe and secure at work,” Halfords said in a statement.
Retail crime soared to more than £1.7 billion in the twelve months to April 2023, figures from the British Retail Consortium revealed.
On Tuesday, Marks and Spencer Group PLC (LSE:MKS) chairman Archie Norman said that middle-class shoplifters and individuals taking chances at self-checkout counters were also to blame for the rise in thefts.
“Some of it is by gangs or people stealing to fuel a drug habit,” he said on an LBC podcast on Tuesday.
“Then you get the sort of middle class… With the reduction of service you get in a lot of shops, a lot of people go in and think, 'Well this didn't scan or it's very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time, it's not my fault, I'm owed it’.”