Vacant Properties and Building Sites: The Security Equation – Intruder Alarms
By combining wireless intruder detection, CCTV and 24-hour monitoring, electronic security solutions provider Secom plc has developed a low-cost, high efficiency property protection system that’s ideal for the heightened risks during economic recession. Brian Sims reports.
Needing no telephone line, external power supply or cabling between components, Secom’s event-based Wireless Alarm System with video verification is quick to deploy – and provides an instant solution for security/facilities managers and building contractors needing to secure vacant properties and construction sites.
Integrated video cameras are triggered when an alarm event activation occurs. The system then silently uses mobile phone technology to alert expert security officers at Secom’s Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC), who then assess the incoming images and co-ordinate immediate and appropriate responses.
Secom’s sales director John White believes that video alarm verification significantly limits damage and loss because emergency services can be mobilised and on the scene more rapidly – with a detailed briefing from the Secom ARC officer to guide them.
The system also affords added protection against false alarms.
Secom’s ‘Videofied’ Wireless Alarm System provides both short and long-term security options which can be brought into service virtually immediately. The system is flexible, too. Camera units may easily be moved around a site to suit changing security needs.
Spate of business failures
“The spate of business failures since the banking crisis in 2008, and the subsequent recession, has left thousands of retail, commercial and industrial properties standing empty along with many other new buildings completed in this period,” explained White in conversation with SMT Online.
“Many of these vacant buildings are no longer secure, and are consequently at risk of vandalism, squatting, arson or theft of materials.”
With recession and unemployment still rife, vacant properties are a major worry for building and facilities managers who need to maintain them to a good standard in readiness for the next tenants.
“Where builders are still at work,” continued White, “construction sites are now more likely to be targeted by criminals with an eye for marketable tools and high-value materials left on site overnight and at weekends.”
The Home Office estimates that the construction industry loses up to £400 million a year in plant, materials and indirect costs related to theft.
“One of the first security solutions building site managers look to is security guarding, but this can be very expensive, costing anything from £3,600 upwards per month.”
Basic cost comparison
A basic Secom Wireless Alarm System with video verification starts from £485 per month – about one seventh of the cost of security guarding – depending on the number of cameras and other components necessary to provide the required coverage.
The systems are designed and installed at no additional charge, and maintained by Secom engineers.
John White continued: “We have proved that remote, event-based monitoring is more cost-effective than security guarding through our many years’ experience of wired ‘permanent’ video alarm monitoring systems. Now we have combined those principles with our successful wireless alarm concept to produce an ideal ‘temporary’ solution for medium to large-scale properties.”
Secom’s ‘Videofied’ Wireless Alarm System is also an option for occupied properties, and its benefits were demonstrated recently with one of the first installations during an intrusion at a large office supply store in the Leeds area.
Here, the Secom ARC response enabled police to detain a suspect on the premises within minutes of the initial alarm.
