With heavy rain threatening to ruin the fun, the joint-effort Safer Plates event has been postponed to tomorrow.

Vehicle owners are encouraged to head along to Bunnings Whakatāne between 9am and midday tomorrow to get anti-theft screws fitted to their number plates for free.

Whakatāne Neighbourhood Support will be outside Bunnings with Community Constable Rob Jones and Community Patrol, while the local Blue Light team will be manning the barbecue.

Whakatāne police Senior Sergeant Cam MacKinnon said number plates were commonly stolen to replace plates on other vehicles being used to commit crimes.

He said stolen plates were one of several common factors that could complicate investigations and urged anyone who found themselves missing a number plate to report the theft to police.

“If we know they’re taken, they can be immediately flagged as such.”

Mr MacKinnon said number plates being flagged as stolen can often allow police to intercept vehicles before they commit planned crimes.

Whakatāne police did just that in the past week, when a flagged number plate was picked up on their automatic number plate reader system.

Mr MacKinnon said officers approached the stolen vehicle from a distance, put the required units in place for the vehicle to be spiked, and stopped it safely.

An arrest was made.

“This was good work. It just shows that without the initial owner of the number plate taking the time to ring it in, it wouldn’t have flagged because it wouldn’t have been in that system.”

Mr MacKinnon said it was a straightforward process to report a stolen number plate, either through the national 105 route or by popping into your local police station.