Nexus, which owns and manages the Metro system in the North East, has joined forces with North Tyneside Council and Northumbria Police to launch a hard-hitting poster campaign to warn of the dangers and consequences of cable theft from Metro lines.

Guerilla Communications designed the campaign which uses graphic images of a man with electric burns to highlight the safety message – as well as underlining that police are closing the net on cable thieves.

Huw Lewis, Head of Communications at Nexus said: ”Guerilla won this project through a competitive pitch process with the clarity and strength of their creative and the hard-hitting message underpinning it.  We were impressed how well they understood what we wanted from this campaign – which is to ram home the double danger of stealing metal from the rail network.

“As well as succeeding in this, the media coverage the campaign launch has attracted helps support our wider campaign to highlight the impact of metal theft on local communities and the need for a change in the law to address this issue.”

The key messages of the campaign are that live cables on the railways have the potential to kill or cause serious injuries and that police patrols have been stepped up, making it even more likely that offenders will be caught in the act.  The posters are being displayed at prominent locations next to Metro tracks across Tyneside.
Cable theft has become a growing problem for the Metro network. Nexus, which owns and manages the system, has spent over £300,000 carrying out repairs as a result of cable theft since the end of March this year.

Nexus is already working with railway industry partners, utility companies and the police to press for changes in the laws and regulations that cover the trade in scrap metal, so it is harder for thieves to sell stolen cables as scrap.