Coza24
It’s the stranger than fiction story of a cannabis raid and fire that is unlikely to make the next omnibus of goings-on in Ambridge.
Police have found more than £400,000 of cannabis in an industrial unit in the village that inspired The Archers – which then mysteriously caught fire days later.
Officers from West Mercia Police wearing riot gear smashed in the doors of a building on the B4090 Saltway in Hanbury, Worcestershire earlier this week using chainsaws and battering rams.
Inside, they discovered a ‘really sophisticated’ drug cultivation operation with high-powered LED lights, heating, insulation and even a makeshift second floor where more drugs were being grown.
Two Albanian men aged 22 and 24 were arrested on suspicion of producing a Class B drug, their cuffing caught on camera at 7.30am on Wednesday.
West Mercia Police officers in full riot gear bash in the door of a warehouse in Hanbury on Wednesday morning
The cannabis plantation they found inside was hosting some 500 plants, some of which had recently been harvested
Two Albanian men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested on the scene and charged with the production of a Class B drug and abstracting electricity
The ‘professional’ set up saw a makeshift second floor created – with perspex walls and reams of power cables connected to LED lights and heaters
The warehouse on the B4090 Saltway in Hanbury, where police busted a drug farm. The building caught fire two days later
Bags and boxes of equipment including sprayers were seized by police as they raided the drug growing operation
Officers examine the highly professional setup on the doorstep of the real-life Ambridge – with reflectors used to spread LED lighting out in a way akin to natural sunlight
But police have since confirmed that the warehouse they raided, bringing down the sophisticated drug ring, has gone up in flames.
It brought to an end a dramatic week of events in Hanbury, where farmhouse conversions come with asking prices upwards of £900,000 and locals pride themselves on their link with The Archers, which is as old as the programme itself.
Hanbury church St Mary the Virgin, for instance, has served as the regular recording location for scenes set in Ambridge’s fictional St Stephen’s parish.
The wedding of Grace Fairbrother and Phil Archer was recorded in the church in 1955 – months before Grace was then killed off in a fire on the night that ITV launched in a bid by BBC bosses to distract audiences from the launch of their rival.
And when characters Emma and Will Grundy settled into their unhappy marriage on the programme, their actors – including later Oscar nominee Felicity Jones – posed for promotional photos in the churchyard and the nave.
But the events in the sleepy hamlet of recent days would likely prove too much for those who tune in to Radio 4 at 7pm every weeknight for the latest happenings in rural Borsetshire.
Dramatic footage shared by West Mercia Police showed officers cutting through the doorways of the metal farm building on Wednesday – with audio captured by the BBC recording officers yelling ‘Breach! Breach!’ as they carve their way inside.
Spread across two storeys, with reams of power cables nailed to wooden posts propping up the makeshift second floor, the illegal plantation was home to some 500 cannabis plants.
Boasting large-scale lighting fixtures with reflectors to emulate the natural spread of the sun, heating units and sheet insulation, police say the operation was a ‘professional setup’.
The police raid in Hanbury was conducted by the South Worcestershire Neighbourhood Crime Fighting Team (NCFT).
Sergeant Shaun Blackshaw of the NCFT said: ‘This successful warrant today shows we will not tolerate criminal activity within our community and will continue to act on information given to us about drugs.
‘Cannabis farms like to this are often linked to serious and organised crime gangs, the drugs they sell have a negative impact on our communities and can lead to other localised criminality.
‘The cultivation of these crops can also lead to the harm and exploitation of vulnerable people.’
St Mary the Virgin church in Hanbury, which stands in for St Stephen’s in Ambridge in the radio soap opera
The wedding of Grace Fairbrother and Phil Archer was recorded in the church in 1955 – months before Grace was then killed off in a fire on the night that ITV launched
The Archers has not shied away from controversial storylines in recent years – such as the plight of Helen Archer (Louiza Patikas) under evil, abusive partner Rob Titchener (Timothy Watson), who was later killed off
The soap has also modernised in other ways, such as introducing its first lesbian couple made up of characters Pip Archer (Daisy Badger, above) and Stella Pryor
Queen Camilla is among The Archers’ staunchest fans – seen here cutting a cake with June Spencer, known for playing Peggy Woolley for much of the soap’s lifetime
The plantation was described as being half a football pitch long – with evidence that some plants had recently been harvested.
Sgt Blackshaw later told the BBC of the operation: ‘It’s quite vast. A really successful warrant, lots of drugs taken off the street that are going to be of significant value as well.
‘We believe potentially this has gone back to October last year, when the unit has changed hands from (our) intelligence, a really sophisticated and what I would describe as a professional set up.
‘A lot of insulation, they’ve even put perspex walls up and stairs so they’ve got two floors – very professional but also very dangerous.’
Ervin Aliaj, 24 and Ndoj Ardit, 22, of no fixed addresses, were both charged with the production of a class B drug and abstracting electricity. They had been due to appear at Kidderminster Magistrates’ Court this week.
But the drama did not end there – with the warehouse that had been shut down by police on Wednesday catching fire on Friday morning, 48 hours after riot cops moved in to shut down the drug farm.
Worcester News reports four crews from Droitwich, Redditch and Bromsgrove, plus water carriers from Evesham and Peterchurch, were called out to the B4090 shortly after 10.15am.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus broke the fire down and extinguished it; there were no reports of anyone in the building.
West Mercia Police later confirmed to the local newspaper that the building was the same one that its officers had turned over on Wednesday.
It is unclear whether the fire is being treated as deliberate – MailOnline has contacted the force for further comment.
In recent years, the Archers has been criticised by long-term fans who claim the programme has been ‘sexed-up’ in order to court new listeners who are accustomed to TV soap operas such as Eastenders.
The show is so enshrined in British culture that a 2004 April Fool’s prank by the Today programme claiming Brian Eno had remixed the theme tune for a new generation resulted in genuine uproar.
Originally billed as ‘an everyday story of country folk’ enduring the trials and tribulations of farming in middle England, recent storylines have deviated away from rural life – with writers turning their attention to heavy topics like teenage pregnancy to animal euthanasia.
The soap has also modernised in other ways, such as introducing its first lesbian couple made up of characters Pip Archer and Stella Pryor.
Some suspect the more eccentric plotlines are an attempt to bring in a younger audience – many of whom are actively interested in country life as well as the wider issues surrounding modern farming such as global warming and sustainability.
But writers have been praised for their handling of a storyline that culminated in the demise of Rob Titchener, the evil, abusive and manipulative partner of Helen Archer, that prompted wider discussions about coercive control and £175,000 of donations from the public to domestic abuse charities.
Among those who had called for his comeuppance? None other than the Queen herself – Camilla is among the programme’s staunchest fans and had written in a letter to the cast to mark the 20,000th episode in September: ‘Here’s to the next 20,000 episodes – and, let’s hope, the end of Rob Titchener once and for all!’
She appeared as herself in 2011 in her role as the National Osteoporosis Society’s president to mark the show’s 60th anniversary, while Princess Margaret, then president of children’s charity the NSPCC, recorded a cameo in 1984.
Despite occasionally incurring ire from fans over racier storylines, show buses insist they’ve never shied away from pushing the envelope: at the turn of the century, the programme featured a bathroom sex scene between Sid Perks and Jolene Rogers.
It later emerged, some 20 years later, that the scene was recorded in positively unerotic fashion: with the actors stood in baking trays, waving around a plastic raincoat that stood in for a shower curtain, the Telegraph reported.
But if the writers of The Archers are struggling for ideas for their next big twist, they may not have to look too far from home for inspiration.
