19/08/2026
Trespass costs the UK literally hundreds of thousands a year - if not millions. Whether it's through the increased costs to land owners, the damage to historic buildings, or the cost of unproven theft where thieves will often get caught in the act by police, but will have thrown their torch & crowbar away on site so they're "just trespassing".
The UK legal system doesn't presently have a robust and meaningful way to handle trespassers in the criminal system, meaning that more often that not trespassers walk away.
Actual conversations overheard with police & trespassers:
Urban Explorers - "I didn't break the lock, it was like that when I got here"
Burglars - "We're just exploring, we weren't up to no good"
Children - "You can't stop us, we know our rights" - meanwhile they're hanging off the top of a 10th floor scaffold taunting the police.
Unauthorised Encampments - "We don't want to cause any trouble, it'll be cheaper to pay us a couple of grand each than to get us moved on"
Protestors "We're allowed to be here, nobody can stop us and we're going to fly our flags" (followed by the tower crane they were climbing being out of commission for 2 days for inspections)
Please consider signing our petition to ask the government to develop and implement a robust criminal trespass law: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/776156 - every signature helps and we've got 6 months to hit the 10,000 mark.
Introduce a new specific criminal trespass law which makes it an offence to be on any private property without consent of their representative. The intent of the law would be to fill what we see as a gap in legislation which allows urban explorers, base jumpers & prospective thieves to walk free.
