More than a third of transport, distribution and storage companies have suffered criminal damage to their company vehicles, according to a new report by the British Chambers of Commerce.

Some 15% also reported experiencing the theft of their vehicles.

This underlines the vulnerability of business premises outside office hours.

The report also estimated the cost of business crime in the UK at £12.6bn, a rise of 20% over the past four years.

As a result, Reliance Security Services has launched a new service that provides owner-managers with an all-inclusive security monitoring, emergency response and building repairs service – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Sandra Burrell, director of Reliance, said: “Managers of business premises can lock their doors at night, safe in the knowledge that OneCall will take care of any emergency incidents.

“This means an end to out-of-hours phone calls should an alarm be triggered, while the repair service takes care of any troublesome maintenance issues.”