A BUSINESS owner has called for more support for shops after thieves ruined the roof of his cafe.

Simon Taylor, who runs Tiffany’s In The Square, was forced to travel to the town centre on his day off to temporarily fix the roof.

He said: "Someone should be doing something to stop this from happening again.

"This morning at about 6am one of the workers clearing rubbish noticed some guys up on ladders trying to take the lead off the roof.

"He approached one of my members of staff and said to be vigilant because they'd tried it in other areas of the town centre.

"They did their best but didn't manage to get quite as much as we thought which was great."

Mr Taylor travelled to his town centre business from his home in Chorley to put the temporary fix in place.

He'd arranged to spend his day off with his partner, who also works at the business, and was left frustrated at the extra work the thieves had caused him.

Although it appears the men came prepared, with ladders and tools to remove screws, their work was very messy, causing a lot of damage to the shop front.

Mr Taylor said: "It looked horrendous, they'd just ripped it to shreds.

"I've put a temporary repair in place but with my DIY skills we'll just have to see how long it lasts.

"One of my regular customers pointed out to me that they may even come back tonight if they were disturbed.

"They'd taken some of the screws out so they must have come very well equipped and being that it's in the town centre there must be some CCTV of them.

"Hopefully someone spotted them or can see something out of the ordinary on their footage.

"You'd like to think some one other than a window cleaner walking around with a pair of ladders would look a little suspicious."

It is believed that the group of men were spotted stealing the lead from the cafe in Victoria Square at around 6am on Thursday morning.

The heavy metal is commonly stolen to be sold for scrap, as the price of lead has risen substantially over the last decade.

Replacing the stolen flashing can be very expensive, and Mr Taylor is worried about the cost.

He added: "We're struggling at the moment, I've seen my figures drop and we're watching other businesses closing around us which is really scary.

"There's not much to bring people into Bolton anymore, we used to be the busiest independent cafe in the borough but the people just aren't coming.

"We just don't have the money to fix this and I feel very alone in Bolton as a business owner."