BUSINESSES are counting the cost after thieves took a 20-tonne excavator on a two-hour wrecking spree.

The £70,000 digger, which is used for large-scale groundworks, was stolen from WH Bond, the plant hire company in Trerulefoot.

The huge machine was then driven around fields in the area, damaging ground, gates, hedges and almost destroying a small equipment shop at a fishing lake complex.

More on this in this week's Cornish Times.