On the Case

A safer car park

A large car park next to the Avonmeads Retail Park in south Bristol has received ‘Secured Car Park’ status, following the installation of a new CCTV system by the security division of Certainty Group.

Certainty Group was asked to design and install a system that would enhance the safety and enjoyment of visitors to the shopping centre. The company installed five speed dome cameras around the car park, linked to an on-site control room, where security personnel can view live images or review video automatically stored on a digital video recorder.

The cameras are equipped with in-built motion detection, and can be triggered to move to preset positions when an alarm is activated. The night images from the 24-hour system are transmitted to a remote night monitoring centre, where operators can use a loudspeaker

system to communicate with any unwelcome visitors.

The Secure Car Park scheme was launched in 1992 by the Association of Chief Police Officers to encourage car parks to improve security standards.

Inspector Colin Salmon, from Brislington police, said: “The car park received the award as a direct result of the improvements in security due to the installation of the digital CCTV system. The CCTV has been a huge boost to the work of the police and the success of the site.”

CCTV coaching aid

Glamorgan County Cricket Club turned to Cardiff-based security consultants DO Harries when it was looking for a creative method of improving player training.

The club wanted a means of recording the on-field action for later review, but because varying pitches in slightly different positions on the centre square are used on match days, the equipment needed to be mobile, and quickly able to line up with the wicket in use.

The company’s David Harries decided to use a Dennard dome, in conjunction with the combined power and mounting Q Socket from Quick CCTV. When not in use, the

Q Socket is weatherproofed using a special amphonel cap.

Now, on match days, Glamorgan CCC can digitally record the bowling from behind the wicket, and using specialist software can analyse statistical data such as bowling zones, batsman scoring areas, ‘play and misses’, batsman weaknesses, and more. This information can be called up against any one of the players recorded, and the video instantly called up for the coach or player to use as a coaching aid.

Glamorgan CCC’s Steve Watkins said: “We are extremely pleased with the result – a very neat solution that allows the club to utilise the high quality CCTV technology for our training purposes.”

Protection for Harvey Nichols

Supply chain solution provider Wincanton has placed a contract with Reflex to protect premium quality food, beverages and clothing in transit for Harvey Nichols at its Greenford distribution site in Middlesex.

Eighteen latest generation high resolution cameras have been fitted to monitor and record goods in and goods outwards movements. Wincanton management can view the video images remotely on their internal IT network, and access the footage historically if required, on a digital playback facility.

Reflex has already installed systems at three other Wincanton client distribution centres for Nestle Purina (Hams Hall, Coleshill, Birmingham), Argos (Telford), and Mattel (Daventry), comprising a variety of access control, CCTV surveillance, perimeter detection, and other security and health and safety applications.

Reflex projects director Steve Ward said: “Our 15 years experience and expertise in the warehousing and logistics sector enables us to deliver individually tailored solutions that directly assist the business management process. In fulfilling the requirements for Wincanton and another of its key clients in Harvey Nichols, Reflex has again proven that it can deliver for some of the largest and most prestigious customers and brands.”

Playing safe at Chelsea

IT assurance, security and advice provider NCC Group is helping Chelsea Football Club to keep a clean sheet with its IT compliance and security protection measures.

The Manchester-based company was initially asked to check on the football club’s data protection procedures, and has since been retained to ensure its information security is critically managed.

One of the key issues at Chelsea was data protection, and the need for the club to protect and correctly manage the information that it holds, NCC said. After establishing procedures to ensure the club does not fall foul of data protection issues, NCC Group went on to assess Chelsea’s software compliance, and is currently providing advice on corporate governance, business continuity, and disaster recovery programmes.

NCC Group’s Director of IT Consultancy, John Redeyoff, said: “As part of its ongoing relationship with Chelsea, NCC Group is seeking to work in numerous areas, including business continuity, a field of growing importance. Chelsea has recognised this, and is working with the NCC Group to put in place the relevant disaster recovery and business continuity plans.”

‘Prestigious’ system installed

A prestigious new ‘gated’ development in Horsham, West Sussex, has been completed with powered gates installed by Tate Automation of Tunbridge Wells.

Tate installed elegant, traditional access metal gates, automated with FAAC 760 operators, at the site’s two entrances. Managing director Gary Tate said the development was a very high profile one in the town, so he felt it was important to install attractive gates with reliable operators. “We chose the FAAC 760 underground operators for their reliability in a high use application and their efficiency in operation,” he said.

The Manor is a development of 14 three and four bedroom town houses, and 18 two and three bedroom apartments, set in landscaped gardens.

FAAC 760 is a hydraulic operator designed for swing gates of up to 800kg per leaf. The gates are mounted on foundation boxes, allowing easy access for installation of the operators and future maintenance.

The system features hydraulic locking, allowing the gates to be secure in open and closed positions. Other features include an anti-crushing device, a manual release device for use in the event of power failure and hydraulic slowdown, which prevents the gates from banging together when closing, and also prolongs the life of the whole gate system.

Cash machines in ‘pods’

Bastion Security of Gateshead has won a contract from Nationwide to produce secure housings for its cash machines. The contract, worth around £250,000, is to supply telescopic housings, or ‘pods’, for cash machines designed for third party sites.

The new machines allow customers to access cash in previously unserviced locations due to security issues posed in filling the machines. The secure housing that Bastion has developed for Nationwide provides anti-ballistic protection and privacy to the staff who carry out that role.

The design of the housings has been in use for over eight years, but Bastion has updated the product to give Nationwide a solution to a problem that could have potentially prevented its expansion and roll-out plans with new style cash machines.

The housings will be installed throughout the UK, with the contract expected to be completed in early 2005.

Kevin Scott-Evans, Nationwide’s Controller of Self Service Banking, said: “We have been exploring this side of our business for some time, and Bastion Security were able to provide us with a perfect solution to the security problems that became apparent when we looked at further expansion.”

Keeping kids from straying

Radford Customer Guidance and Checkouts Ltd has helped the new Kidsports children’s club in Watford to install a holding pen system that prevents its young clientele from wandering.

With child safety a high priority, Kidsports needed an access system that would provide a barrier to exit as well as entry. Radford’s solution offered an assurance that the children would stay put and enjoy the Kidsports physical activities without straying.

Radford’s technical sales advisor, Paul Blow, planned and implemented the system. “Radford has the expertise to implement a wide range of customer guidance applications

in any given environment,” he said. “We delivered a solution that is specifically tailored to the requirements of the Kidsports concept. The system is reliable and provides safe access to and from the play area.”

Radford’s Eurogate, which was used in the project, is designed to assist in customer control and security in retail outlets and public buildings.

Break-in spurs installation

Following a break-in which saw £87,000 worth of plant stolen, Foxley Builders called on Herts & Essex Alarms to install security sounders from Klaxon at its Hertfordshire premises.

A combination of Klaxon’s Masterblaster siren and Inferno sounder now protects Foxley’s warehouse, while its offices are guarded by an additional Inferno. Prior to the robbery, there was no alarm system in place to protect the property.

The building is now defended by a dual-path signalling partition system, in which each employee can only gain access to either the warehouse or the office section according to their individual user status.

Foxley’s managing director Kevin Gregory said that although the initial installation of the Masterblaster had put his mind at rest, it wasn’t until he was given a demonstration of the Inferno by Herts & Essex Alarms that he felt completely reassured.

“We couldn’t have a chosen a better system,” he said. “We’ve secured our future and our investment, and given ourselves real peace of mind.”

Protecting the Arsenal

RJK Security Systems has joined forces with developers to provide an access control system for a project on the site of the historic Royal Arsenal.

Berkeley Homes and the London Development Agency are transforming the 76-acre site of the Royal Arsenal West in Woolwich into a new urban quarter, providing a mixture of residential, commercial and leisure facilities. Richard King from RJK was asked to advise on and install the access control system for the initial phase of the development.

He recommended the Net2 PC-based access control system from Paxton access. “The Royal Arsenal is a sizable development,” he said. “Management will be more efficient by using a central computer, as opposed to setting access rights individually at each entry point. Net2 is a system I install regularly, and I find it both reliable and straightforward to use.”

Used as a base for manufacturing fuses gunpowder and ammunition since 1696, the Royal Arsenal saw over 80,000 people employed on site during the first world war. Royal Arsenal West and Royal Arsenal East remained in MOD use until the early 1990s.

Innovative gate

What is probably the largest sliding cantilever gate in Britain has been installed at a flour mill in Lincolnshire by Secure Entry Systems of Spalding, working with RF Welding & Fabrication.

The 18m cantilever gate, and a pair of outward opening swing gates, were required after joy-riders and homebound revellers began using the mill yard as a short cut.

Around 30 articulated lorries pass through the site every day. The yard operates a one way system, but there was no room on the ‘out’ side for gates to swing into the yard, and a public highway meant there was no chance of using outward swinging gates. So the 18m sliding gate was used.

“We’ve designed a gate that, when it’s fully open, disappears into a hole in the factory wall,” Secure Entry System’s Malcolm Gower said. The cantilever gate has no ground track or exposed wheels making contact with the ground. “A track would have been quickly damaged by the heavy traffic. So we mounted inside the building a frame to hold

a 2m high cantilevered gate, with additional support for the gate when it is fully opened, and fully inside the building.”

The gate is automated with a FAAC 844 three-phase operator. It features constant oil bath lubrication of mechanical components, as well as a single high-strength die-cast aluminium casing, for longer life. The electronic control board is remotely fitted.

Because of concerns that vandals may damage the normal safety sensors fitted to this kind of gate, it can only be moved when the gate operator holds a key against a spring-loaded FAAC T10 key switch in the opening or closing direction. A strobe light above the key-switch area warns of gate movement.

New hospital equipped

Engineers from ADT have installed a fully integrated systems package, including CCTV, access control, intruder alarms and fire systems, for the new Wharfedale Locality Hospital in Otley. The £13m new hospital replaces the ageing old Victorian building for the Wharfedale and North Leeds area.

The 24-hour monitored security package is linked to a central control room on site, and will eventually be monitored by the main Leeds NHS Trust security office.

The access control and video intercom system will cover a number of doors that can only be accessed through an ID card swipe, protecting areas off-limits to the public, such as laboratories, pharmacies and staff areas.

Internal and external high resolution colour CCTV cameras will monitor the hospital and its grounds. Intruder alarms and fire systems will cover all corners of the new facility, from private laboratories to minor injuries and outpatient clinics.

ADT won the security contract after a six-way pitch to the main contractor, HBG Construction, and the mechanical and electrical contractor, Haden Young.

Gary Knights, ADT’s safety and security consultant, said: “Hospitals are extremely busy places, used by hundreds of visitors every day, not to mention staff and patients. Security takes on added importance for safety in public buildings such as these.”

Major council installation

Tyco Integrated systems has designed and installed a new digital CCTV networking system for Peterborough City Council – one of the largest systems of any local authority in the UK.

The system upgrades an older analogue tape recording system to a fully digital system using six 16-channel DVRs to record all 96 town centre CCTV cameras simultaneously to hard disk for over a month. With 1.3 TeraBytes of RAID hard disk archiving capacity, the system gives Peterborough CC and local police virtually instant access to recorded video over a long period at the touch of a button.

The system includes a separate four-channel digital recorder, and there is a link to a separate police control room, so local police can use the system independently for crime surveillance and to speed up response times.

The new system is fully networkable and expandable, and is already being upgraded with another 32-channel DVR to extend coverage to include the separate Town Hall CCTV system, so operators can monitor alarms and events in the Town Hall while it is unmanned at weekends or at nights.

Roy Wilder, Peterborough CCTV manager, said: “This new generation digital recording system from Tyco makes our CCTV operation much more effective. We can now record and review video virtually instantly at the touch of a button, rather than spending time searching videotapes, to speed up detection and response. The higher quality video makes detection and investigation much easier.”

Upgrade for tourist site

Retail CCTV systems installer G1 has won a maintenance contract which has seen it upgrade a number of monitors and pan and tilt cameras at London’s famous Covent Garden Market.

The market’s management decided to invest in a maintenance contract following ongoing technical problems with its original analogue CCTV system.

“We were having some difficulty with some of our older monitors and cameras and we needed a reliable and readily available 24-hour call-out service,” said Covent Garden Market operations manager Paul Murray.

Security requirements for the market are based on a combination of traditional manned guarding and electronic systems.

All images generated from the CCTV system are monitored in the control room.

“We have found the service from G1 to be invaluable,” Murray said. “G1 understands our business and can be trusted for an honest answer to any query.

“They have been able to offer a smooth-running CCTV system that is clearly a benefit to our business.”

Chris Best, director of G1 said: “The work which is being carried out on Covent Garden Market will ensure the continued safety of the premises, businesses, shoppers and staff.”

Convenient and secure

Checkpoint Systems UK has installed state-of-the-art security systems in SPAR grocery stores in the north of England.

G&E Murgatroyd, which runs a SPAR-managed estate in the country’s north, has installed Checkpoint’s 3rd Generation Trend range at its new forecourt shops in Rawtenstall and Sunderland. Checkpoint also provided scan deactivators, paper tags, and bottle tags.

The 3rd Generation trend equipment provides wide aisle detection, and is suitable for retailers which experience heavy customer traffic.

“We have been trialling AM tagging technology in some SPAR stores for a while, but made the decision to switch to RF as it enables better integration with our existing screening systems,” Geoff Hughes, security and audit manager at G&E Murgatroyd, said.

“RF tags are more discreet, and there is the future option of linking the technology with our existing CCTV. We took the decision to invest in more advanced security technology as the convenience sector started to attract shoplifters who assumed that as the major multiples had more protection, chains like SPAR would be an easy target. We have already noticed that the antennas at the doorways are deterring some thieves, which is encouraging.”

Mark Bird, senior national account manager at Checkpoint Systems UK, said: “Most convenience outlets don’t have the luxury of being able to employ security guards, and many don’t have backroom CCTV to help protect against shoplifters. This places increased importance on the staff and security system to do its job properly.”

Sports centre refit

Reflex in South Yorkshire has carried out a £100,000 project for Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield.

The project ensures compliance with current health and safety legislation for zonal evacuation. Zonal functionality was used to provide complete flexibility for the bespoke distributed music and PA announcement systems installed on the project.

The PA and evacuation system was completely changed out to a new fully automated and programmable intelligent system. A full acoustic check was carried out prior to works commencing, and Reflex met and exceeded all acoustic parameters.

John Connolly, facilities manager for Ponds Forge ISC, said: “We are delighted with the work Reflex has carried out. The brief was complex and the acoustic parameters were critical in terms of health and safety compliance in the event of evacuation.

We can now stream whatever genre of music we require into individual areas of the site.

“The installation was carried out on time within tight time and access constraints. Reflex really delivered.”

Major airport upgrade

CAMS Fire and Security has provided a major security upgrade at the corporate aviation hangar at London Luton Airport. The company installed a bespoke system solution, integrating digitally networked CCTV and access control and intruder alarm technology.

“We specified one of Dedicated Micros’ DVRs, as its open architecture allowed us to bring all the security components together by writing our own front end and interface,” CAMS’s Martin Gould said.

The DVR controls images from cameras located both around the hangar on the aircraft side and over the doors controlling the perimeter to the commercial offices.

Gould said: “The new system has enabled the company to satisfy London Luton airport’s strict aviation security demands while providing a useful management tool for the rest of the business.”