As figures showing the number of rail delays due to metal theft has risen sharply, we find the government's strategy for curbing the illegal market in copper is still very much in the sidings. But the problems go much further than just trains...
Once every couple of weeks, Tory Councillor Adrian Andrews goes to the Barr Beacon War Memorial, commemorating men from Walsall killed in the First World War. He's checking to see if metal has been stolen from the building.
"It looks like a bandstand, it was more comprehensive when it was built in the thirties, but some of the railings were taken away in World War Two to build tanks."
Since the 1950's, nothing much changed to the war memorial, until about two years ago when bits of metal started going missing.
"The last incident was about three months ago, we've had four metal thefts from the building. We did repair it at a cost of £5,000 but it was stolen again. We've covered it over with tarpaulin and we're waiting to see if we receive a grant to get it restored.
Andrews has tried to make it harder for thieves to take metal from the memorial, but they are finding novel ways of getting at it.
"What we've done is installed dragon's teeth to stop people from driving into the site, but the thieves then put pieces of wood over the dragon's teeth so they could drive in.
"It's disgraceful. From the nearby church two plaques commemorating names from the First World War have been taken from the gateposts.
"Metal theft in this part of the world is a huge issue across Walsall and the Black Country. The police are taking it quite seriously and are looking at treating the metal with a liquid which is unique and can be traceable if it's stolen by using ultraviolet light.
"But the biggest issue is that the scrap dealer should be checking where the metal is coming from. We also have problems with thefts of drains and grates across the borough. It's huge.
Metal theft from war memorials is deeply upsetting for many people, but the problems it causes to the railway network...
A parliamentary answer to Shadow Transport Minister John Woodcock MP released on Monday showed that the number of hours of train delays caused by metal theft is rising sharply. Labour believes if the trend continues they will be up 14% year-on-year, and up by almost half since 2008.
Dyan Crowther, Director of Operational Services at Network Rail told MPs on Tuesday that metal theft was costing the economy up to £20 million pounds a year, and was putting people off catching trains.
"Clearly our ability to provide services reliability affects our ability to attract people to use the railways as opposed to other means of transport.
"if we assume that the impact that cable theft-related delay has the same effect as other forms of delay, we would estimate the potential loss to the railways is about half a million passenger journeys a year. At the moment in total there are 1.3 billion passenger journeys a year."
Although HM Revenue and Customs launched a scrap metal task force this week, all that's designed to do is make sure that the trade pays the correct amount of tax, and has nothing to do with stopping the problem of theft in the first place.
The minister in charge of targeting metal theft, Lord Henley, wouldn't talk to HuffPost UK about the problem. Instead the Home Office issued a rather watery statement:
"We are working closely with the police, industry and other government departments on a range of initiatives. We want to make it harder to for criminals to steal metal in the first place and we're looking at whether we need to change the law.
"Discussions are ongoing but by working together I am confident we can develop a robust and effective response.”
So while it seems the government hasn't really made a start on tackling the problem, the 'good guys' in the scrap metal industry say what's needed is a strategy that works across multiple departments and appreciates the scale of the challenge...
Ian Heatherington runs the British Metals Recycling Association. The official scrap market is a £5 billion pounds-a-year industry, and he says while the black market in scrap metal is small by comparison, he says there now needs to be a radical rethink on how to curb it.
"At the moment enforcement is lax, illegal operators work with a high degree of impunity and very openly. Quite frankly any regulatory changes or new law will be made to look an ass if we don't see a sensible and intense level of enforcement."
Heatherington says the past Labour government didn't do anything about it when they were in power, either. "We've been making pleas about curbing illegal operations for years," he said.
"There was a very successful action by the environment agency a short time ago, they secured successful convictions, sent three people to jail. It was exactly what we wanted to see happening, unfortunately those people had been operating for 15 years."
He also insists that the currently framework of individual police forces adopting their own isn't working.
"This material travels very quickly through a number of hands. It may initially be sold to somebody behind the local pub, that individual will sell it on to someone else, probably talking some steps to remove any points of identification from it, it'll then be accumulated with other material which may be quite legitimate.
"It'll then be moved on somewhere else and probably arrive in the legitimate trade four or five steps down the line, probably many, many miles from where the original theft took place."
"We need police forces throughout the UK working to a set of clear guidelines in terms of the way they identify material, people who are improperly carrying this material. We need some proper identification measures set out, the identity of the seller should be clearly nailed to the transaction."
"We've been asking for a national intelligence unit for many years on metal theft. I think people are now finally starting to listen to us."
It's a view echoed by Adrian Andrews in Walsall. "I think the government needs to understand what this metal theft is costing councils. Everything seems to be fair game for these thieves. There needs to be two-pronged approach - there needs to be a specific crime of descerating a war memorial, and there needs to be more checks when people are dropping metal off at a scrapyard. Bank accounts need tracing.
"If it seems to be more difficult for people to get rid of the stuff, then they won't steal it."