POLICE have stepped up patrols around Felixstowe's beach hut sites following break-ins - and today urged owners to invest in alarms.Raiders broke into more than a dozen wooden huts though police do not expect them to have found rich pickings.

POLICE have stepped up patrols around Felixstowe's beach hut sites following break-ins - and today urged owners to invest in alarms.

Raiders broke into more than a dozen wooden huts though police do not expect them to have found rich pickings.

Owners leave little in the chalets over the winter months when they are rarely used, except crockery, kettles and folding chairs.

Felixstowe police commander Insp Neal Atwell said: “The beach huts are an emblem of Felixstowe and an attack on them is an attack on the community.

“It spoils an area used and enjoyed by residents and visitors, and hurts the people who own them.

“There is not a lot in most huts because owners are sensible and do not leave valuables inside, but it is very frustrating and annoying to have to repair this damage.”

Insp Atwell urged hut owners to invest in an alarm such as those used for garden sheds.

He said: “If someone breaking in found an alarm going off at the first couple of huts they tried, they would soon stop.”

Other security measures which could help the hut owners - who suffer from a spate of burglaries or arson attacks almost every winter - include extra lighting and CCTV.

Felixstowe councillor Mike Ninnmey is currently making a study of services provided to hut owners by the council compared with the amount of rents collected each year.

He is primarily looking at services and areas such as funding for blue flags, but also security.

The latest attacks happened last Sunday at privately-owned huts and ones owned by Suffolk Coastal for renting out along Bath Hill and Cliff Road, from close to the golf club up to the Spa Pavilion.

Door panels were ripped from, or kicked in at, several while searches were made of others and damage caused inside.