I have the deepest sympathy Mrs Toast, I would be mortified if my pride and joy went from the garage.
Just to put some perspective on why you aren’t getting the service you would expect from the police though. Here in Lancashire we have lost 800 officers and can expect to lose up to 1000 more in the future if the government follows through on its promises. Last night you wouldn’t have needed all the fingers on one hand to count the number of officers covering Nelson, Colne, Barnoldswick, Clitheroe, Longridge and all the population in between (that isn’t for each town, that is the total officers covering the full area). It isn’t much better in the daytime, and those officers now work resource to threat, which means they only tend to deal with the more serious, immediate threat type incidents (violent domestics, child abuse and neglect, high risk missing persons, etc), of which there are plenty. The ensuing admin to these is overwhelming and there is precious little time to deal with anything else. We rely massively on PCSO’s, Specials and volunteers, but with the best will in the world they cannot deal with the vast majority of what needs doing.
Back office staff have been similarly slashed, and there aren’t enough people to answer the phones and log the complaints, again emergencies take priority. I know for a lot of folk on here (including myself), having their bike stolen is one of the worst things that could happen to them, but unfortunately this is well down the scale in the grand scheme of things, and in this modern era of savage cuts to public services difficult choices have to be made about what can and can’t realistically be dealt with.
Really do hope you get the bike back