Kent Police want CCTV after a tipper van was reported stolen near South Park on 27 August. Both open appeals, the reference numbers, and how to report.

Checked 6 September 2026

We re-read every Kent Police appeal published for the Sevenoaks area against the force's own news pages on 6 September 2026. Two are open, and both are vehicle thefts from properties in the town. The newer one, a tipper van taken near South Park, is the lead below. The May appeal further down is still published and Kent Police have issued no further update on it.

Kent Police have two open appeals running in the Sevenoaks area, and both of them ask local residents for the same thing: private CCTV and dashcam footage. Both are vehicle thefts from properties in the town. This page sets out what the force has actually said in each case, the reference numbers to quote, what the recorded crime figures for the district show, and every official route for reporting something yourself.

Everything below comes from Kent Police’s own published appeals, the police.uk open-data service, or the Home Office recorded crime tables. Each source is linked at the foot of the page, and each appeal carries the date the force published it, so you can see how current it is.

The open appeals

A tipper van taken near South Park, 27 August

Kent Police published this appeal on 1 September 2026. The force says it was called at 3.30pm on Thursday 27 August 2026 to a report that a white Ford Transit tipper van had been stolen from a property near South Park in Sevenoaks. It believes those responsible left the scene towards St Johns Hill and then on to Otford.

Officers attended, carried out initial enquiries including a review of CCTV, and the force says an investigation is underway. Anyone with information is asked to call 01622 604100, quoting reference 46/142073/26. Residents along that route with private CCTV, and drivers with dashcam footage who were in the area at the time, are asked to check what they recorded.

A grey Volkswagen Golf taken from a driveway on the A25, 13 May

Kent Police published this appeal on 29 May 2026, and it remains on the force’s site. Officers were called to a report of a grey Volkswagen Golf being stolen from a driveway along the A25 between 12pm and 1.30pm on Wednesday 13 May 2026. The car was reportedly seen afterwards at a petrol station on London Road in Wrotham Heath.

Following initial enquiries, two people were arrested. Officers then released a CCTV image because they wanted to identify another man who may be able to help them. The reference is 46/76575/26, on the same west Kent appeals line, 01622 604100.

As of 6 September 2026, Kent Police have not published anything further on this case: no charge, no outcome, and no withdrawal of the appeal. We will say so here if that changes.

We are not naming or describing any individual on this page. An appeal to identify someone is a request for help, not an accusation, and nobody should be assumed to be guilty of anything.

What the recorded figures show

One appeal is not a trend, and two are not either. The wider picture is better told by the official counts, and we publish both of them.

Across the whole district, Kent Police recorded 6,462 offences in the year to March 2026, which works out at 52.5 crimes per 1,000 residents, about 37% below the England and Wales rate of 83.0. The district total has fallen in each of the last three years, from 7,970 in the year to March 2023. The full working, the comparison with other Kent districts and the reason five Kent areas cannot be compared at all are in our Sevenoaks crime rate report.

Closer in, the street-level data for the square mile around the town centre records 60 crimes in July 2026, down from 62 in June. Vehicle crime accounted for three of them, down four on the month before, while anti-social behaviour made up 22. The month-by-month breakdown, the streets with the most reports and the case outcomes are in our Sevenoaks crime data report, which we update as each new month of police.uk data is published.

Put the two together and the reading is a calm one. On the Home Office’s own numbers the district’s recorded total is going down rather than up, and vehicle crime is a small share of what gets recorded in the town in any given month, so an open appeal is not evidence of a wave. What is true is that vehicle theft from a property is what Kent Police’s recent Sevenoaks appeals have both been about, and it is the offence where a resident’s own camera footage is most likely to be the thing that helps.

What Kent Police advise about driveway vehicle theft

The force publishes its own guidance on preventing car and vehicle theft. The points that bear on a theft from a driveway are these:

  • Lock it, even on your own drive. Kent Police note that if your vehicle folds its wing mirrors in when locked, thieves read mirrors left out as a sign it is unlocked.
  • Keep keys away from the front door and out of view. The force warns about keys being fished through a letterbox with a stick and hook.
  • Screen a keyless fob. For keyless entry cars, it recommends keeping the key and the spare well away from the vehicle, storing them in a signal-blocking pouch, and checking every few months that the pouch still works.
  • Add something physical. Locks and immobilisers are still recommended alongside all of the above.

To that we would add the point both appeals make: cameras only help if they are recording and keeping footage, rather than only showing a live feed. Both of the open Sevenoaks appeals turn on whether a neighbour or a passing driver can produce a recording.

How to report and stay informed

The reporting routes below are the official ones. They are worth keeping somewhere you can find them.

  • In an emergency, or if a crime is happening now or someone is in danger, call 999. (Kent Police)
  • For non-emergencies, call 101, or use the Kent Police online reporting and live chat tools, which the force says run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (Kent Police)
  • To report anonymously, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or through its secure online form. It will ask about the crime, not about you.
  • To check crime near you, search your postcode on police.uk, which shows recent recorded crimes by category on a local map. Note that street-level releases come out roughly monthly and run about two months behind, as the police.uk data notes explain.
  • To follow your local team, Kent Police run dedicated area pages for Sevenoaks neighbourhoods, including Sevenoaks Town and St John’s, with contact details and updates from the Community Safety Unit.

We check this page against Kent Police’s published appeals and add new ones as the force issues them.

Sources