THREE Somerset village halls were hit by burglars - possibly within a few hours of each other.

Police officers are visiting halls in the county to make sure their management are protecting themselves from raids.

Burtle, Mark and Burrowbridge were the targets - all reported to police on Monday.

Insp Andrew Pritchard said: “We will be visiting every village hall across the area affected and giving them the same advice that we would give home and business owners; that they should ensure valuable property is marked and kept securely, that large amounts of cash are not kept on the premises and that all reasonable security measures, such as installing alarms or CCTV, are taken.

“We do believe the three crimes are linked because these are fairly uncommon targets for burglars, and hope that we will be able to recover what has been lost and bring charges against the offenders.”

A PA system and CD player were stolen from Mark Village Hall between Saturday (January 3) at 10.30am and Monday at 6.15pm. A fire door was jemmied to get into the hall, and two cabinets forced open to steal the equipment.

At Burtle, a safe containing cash was stolen after a door to the bar area had been kicked through between 5.30pm on Saturday and 4pm on Monday.

Nothing was stolen from the Coronation Hall at Burrowbridge when it was broken into between 11am on Sunday and 9.30am on Monday. A rear window had been smashed to get in, and cupboards had been searched.

If you have any information, call 101 quoting reference 1590/15 for the Burtle burglary, 1689/15 for Mark and 1499/15 for Burrowbridge.

Alternatively, call Crimestoppers on 0800-555111.