Police investigating an attempted burglary at a house in Pleck stumbled across a cannabis factory next door where £75,000 worth of plants was being grown.

More than 300 plants were being taken out of the semi-detached house in Gower Street yesterday afternoon by police.

A fingerprint analyst had been checking a property next door after an attempted burglary when he spotted the plants through a back window.

The set-up had been rigged to steal from the street’s electricity supply to give the plants light to grow, which police say was making the house unusually hot.

The operation, which was relatively sophisticated, included high powered lights, ventilation tubing hanging from the ceiling, and mothballs littered the place in an attempt to mask the smell to passers-by.

One man was arrested at the scene and the plants, worth about £250 each, were seized.

Joe Singh, aged 50, a postman who reported the attempted burglary at his home in the early hours of Sunday said: “The guy went round the back to make fingerprint samples, and he came back and said ‘Did you know there’s a cannabis factory next door?’

“It’s shocking, I didn’t even know anybody was living there. It is a worry that something can be that close and you don’t know about it.”

Another householder in the road, who asked to remain nameless, said: “I hadn’t got a clue, although I had smelled something.

“But I haven’t had any dealings with cannabis so I didn’t know what it was. When we had all the bad weather, someone across the road noticed that it was the only house in the road without snow on its roof.”

Sergeant Gary Iliff, of Walsall Police station, said: “I would imagine these have been here about three months.

“These people tend to be very good neighbours because they don’t want any trouble from the local community.”

He added that the electricity situation was highly dangerous and liable to cause fires as the lights used would have been on for 12 hours at a time.

The haul constitutes the latest cannabis factory to be uncovered in the town.

Others found in the area include a 200-plant factory in Wednesbury Road, Pleck, found in September, a property in Station Street, Walsall town centre, where police uncovered about 350 plants in October.