500 machines, equipment and plant are stolen monthly from construction and rural sites, and development, housing and regeneration projects will suffer delays and increased costs as a result.
VPS, the market leaders in protecting vacant properties, publishes today a special construction edition to their well-received “Guards versus Technology” white paper issued last year.
“We’ve launched this special edition white paper on construction site security for two main reasons.” says Simon Alderson, the Development Director for VPS and the elected Chairman of the Vacant Property Protection Group of the BSIA, the British Security Industry Association.
“Firstly, the data on plant and equipment theft from construction sites is staggering. 1 in 5 sites experience vandalism weekly, at least £400 million of plant and equipment get stolen annually, and because a pitifully small percentage of that is ever recovered, such thefts are seen as a ‘low-risk’ gamble.” Mr Alderson explains.
“Secondly, we have tracked across the whole range of security options, so we could compare the pros and cons of the use of the more traditional security methods such as guards, with the increasingly sophisticated technologies available today.”
“Guards are the right choice in certain contexts, but lower-cost, highly capable technological options are fast chasing that market. Sometimes the best-fit solution combines fewer manned security guards with more specialist technologies. Better, more dynamic security strategies for building sites are required.”
In May, the VPS SmartTower CCTV was selected for the U.S. Government Security Platinum Award for Perimeter Security, alongside technology giants Samsung, Honeywell Security and BlackBerry.
The white paper “Dynamic Site Security: Guards versus Technology – which is best?” is available as a pdf on the VPS website www.vpspecialists.co.uk
