A gang is believed to have used an angle-grinder under the cover of darkness to cut their way into a firm’s compound to steal tools and a works van.

Five men broke through fencing and locked gates at the CDDL Recycling depot off New Road, Sheerness, in the early hours of Monday morning.

Managing director Tony Hughes said: “They completely ransacked our yard. They’ve come in, done a load of damage and also nicked keys to our dustcarts so we had to let some of our customers down.

“It’s unbelievable what they have done.

“They haven’t taken thousands of pounds worth of stuff but it’s the inconvenience and damage they left behind. We are not a huge company but they are putting people’s jobs in jeopardy.”

The company, which employs 12 people, has been trading for five years and advertises itself as a one-stop shop for waste.

It handles rubbish bin collections, recycling waste from pubs, restaurants, hotels and clearances from homes, gardens, offices and warehouses.

It services most of the pubs on Sheppey and boasts it “sees every type of waste as an opportunity to reuse, recycle, reduce waste material.”

It also has clients in Sittingbourne and Canterbury

CCTV showed the crooks spent more than two hours at the site from midnight to 2.20am.

Mr Hughes said: “They went up the alley and cut through the fencing posts near the railway line. They cut open two of our containers and took the keys to our vehicles, our tools and then used one of our vans to take away all the gear, breaking the padlocks off two big steel gates as they went.”

He said the van was later seen going over the Sheppey Crossing at 2.30am.

He added: “We think it must have been somebody who knew what we do here and the layout of the yard.”

The missing van had the registration number FP64 PNU. Police forensics visited the yard on Monday morning.

A police spokesman said: "We are investigating a reported burglary at business premises off New Road, Sheerness, at some point between 4pm on Friday and 6.30am on Monday.

"It was reported that padlocks had been cut and a van stolen from within the property along with several sets of keys and a quantity of metal."

Anyone with information can report it online here quoting reference number 46/67446/22.