8,000 Cannabis Plants Found In Town Cottage

[Herb Fellow]

MACCLESFIELD police have discovered what is believed to be one of Britain’s largest ever cannabis factories – housing EIGHT THOUSAND plants worth about £½m – in a weaver’s cottage in the town centre.

Officers routinely attending a blaze on Saturday lunchtime at the Georgian three-storey rented semi on sleepy Bridge Street – just 400 yards away from Brunswick Street Police Station – were stunned by the enormity of the operation and are still reeling from their find.

They were confronted by a triple-tiered indoor drug farm stuffed to the walls and ceilings with cannabis bushes – placed in methodical order from saplings to fully fledged plants all nurtured under a sprawling complicated network of heat lamps.

"It was," according to Macclesfield police Inspector Gareth Woods, "the perfect cannabis factory."

It was also a disaster of epic proportions waiting to happen. For if the fire brigade had not been alerted and they had not arrived so promptly the entire property at Birch House could have exploded causing widespread havoc in a densely populated area. "This could have been a major incident in Macclesfield had the fire service not been there in time," Inspector Woods said last night. "The consequences of a blast, taking into the account the intricate electrical wiring system, would have been catastrophic. It would have gone up like a bomb."

As it is the police are left to unravel the mystery of the Cannabis Cottage and track down the operators, believed to be an organised gang, who were poised, after 18 months of pain-staking management, to seize a fortune from their harvested plants. The street value of the haul is said to be around £½m.

Today (Wednesday) thousands of cannabis plants are expected to be gathered up and taken away and destroyed after forensic experts have inspected the property and taken photographs of crucial evidence. And with a touch of irony 150 bags of uncontaminated soil were handed over to the borough council to be used in the town’s parks.

Meanwhile, the gang who ran the operation, will be counting their losses since cultivating cannabis has become the craze of the underworld. "We are seeing a shift in criminal actiivity because of the confusion of the class of cannabis which is C. Villains see it as less risk in terms of prison sentence if they get caught," Insp Woods. "It is high time something was done."

Police are baffled as to how such a major criminal operation managed to run for so long without neighbours seemingly suspecting a thing. First there was the stench of the distinctive aroma of marjuana and then there was the sheer volume of energy being pumped into the property to power the heat lamps.

"It is startling that the electricity suppliers didn’t smell a rat," said Insp Woods. "There must have been more power generated into that small property than all of Macclesfield put together!"

Described by police as a "highly-sophisticated set up", thousands of plants were being cultivated in batches over three floors of the house, at various stages of growth.

The basement, where the fire broke out, contained dozens of bags of solid fertiliser, while more fertiliser liquids lined the stairs. Firefighters from the specialist hazardous materials unit at Warrington, with protective suits and decontamination facilities, were scrambled to the scene to help tackle the situation.

They joined crews from Macclesfield, Wilmslow and Congleton and spent almost nine hours battling the blaze and making the structure safe for crime scene investigators. Although no-one was in the building when the emergency services arrived, cops found "living quarters" on the first floor, littered with recent newspapers, and there was fresh food in the fridge.

While the fire caused significant damage to the basement and entrance hall, the plants – housed in eight rooms throughout the factory – were untouched by the flames. The rear of the ground floor was being used as a "nursery" for small seedlings divided over two rooms, while the first floor had five separate rooms for more developed plants.

On the top floor, detectives found older, larger plants, and an irrigation system of barrels, hosepipes and water containers. All rooms had sophisticated lighting and heating systems, fed with power from the basement.

Detective Stef Hever, leading the investigations, said the high levels of electricity required for the system led to an overload at the power supply, and the fire broke out,

Retired nurse Pauline Scott, 63, of Bridge Street, was on the phone to her daughter when the fire took hold across the road.

The mum-of-two said: "I heard a crackling and a snapping sound. I thought it was coming from the garden. I looked out of the front door, and saw Birch House was on fire. There was smoke coming out of the basement.They cut the electricity across the road, and it went off in my house too until about 7pm. There were police and firemen coming and going until about 11.30pm."

Bachelor Peter Riddlesworth, 61, of Newton Street, was taking a walk on Bridge Street when he saw the emergency crews. He said: "There was black smoke coming out of the doorway. Firemen went in with breathing apparatus, and the whole street was blocked off. People were waiting at the police line, because they weren’t allowed to get to where their cars were parked!"

No arrests have been made at the time of going to press, and investigations are ongoing.

Source: Macclesfield Express
Copyright: 2008, Macclesfield Express
Contact: Pete Bainbridge
Website: 8,000 cannabis plants found in town cottage - News - Macclesfield Express

[Herb Fellow]

Pics from inside the cottage:

[Boss]

Exploded? Exploded from what? The soil pile?

[Herb Fellow]

"But officer, my infirmity requires heavy medication."

[4twenty4all]

Wow! What an operation! Beautiful plants though... Damn shame....

[Herb Fellow]

[QUOTE] just 400 yards away from Brunswick Street Police Station . . . Police are baffled as to how such a major criminal operation managed to run for so long without neighbours seemingly suspecting a thing. [QUOTE]

Dumb cops, they are the neighbors!

[Boss]

If they didn't know it was there for so long, it must not have been hurting anyone...

[Racefan]

Greed got them caught. If they had run half of what they did they wouldn't have overloaded the circuit box and started the fire. Beautiful grow op though.

[Boss]

I thought you had to have ammonium nitrate and manure to make a bomb :-) But I guess if you got anough methane from the pile of poo...