Monthly Archives: May 2012

Horse owners increasingly being targeted by thieves

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“Horse owners are also being asked to be vigilant in case this is an emerging trend.” So what are Lincolnshire Police warning horse owners about?

Well, anecdotal evidence suggests that horse box and trailer theft is on the increase.

 John Hicks of rural crime prevention and rural security solutions specialists, Rural Property Watch (www.ruralpropertywatch.co.uk) said: “With horse boxes being worth anything up to in excess of £100,000 horse box theft is a serious problem for horse owners. Stolen horse boxes are often hidden for many months before being re-sprayed and resold, then more often than not being shipped overseas.”

 “The issue is how can I prevent my horse box from being stolen, or help it to be found if it is stolen?” John added.

From stopping theft of tack from livery stables or thefts of horse boxes and trailers through to stopping people unlocking gates or, worse still, imposing physical harm on your defenceless animals, Rural Property Watch  are here to help.

Rural Property Watch have worked with manufacturers and developed a range of alarms and detection systems specifically for use in rural situations, in areas where power and communication lines are hard to reach. Systems use a dual beam technology to significantly reduces false activations by animals and weather and can be wirelessly located at key remote entrances giving you peace of mind at all times.

Rural Property Watch farm and rural area alarms can be fitted with various accessories to fit any situation and have been approved by the UK Police, accredited with a Secured by Design™ certificate. In addition, for high value items secret horse box trackers can be fitted allowing it to be located to within a few feet of its current location!

Rural Property Watch offer a free site survey to help you identify the issues and to recommend affordable solutions.

For more details on how Rural Property Watch can secure your farm, remote outbuildings or barn, or give you early warning of an intruder or arson attack, call on 0845 862 0844 (local call rate) or e-mail info@ruralpropertywatch.co.uk

New store security guidelines welcomed by FRL Retail Security Services

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Retail security company, FRL Retail Security Services, welcomed The British Retail Consortium (BRC) new best practice guide for retail employers, which aims to increase awareness of the impact that violence against staff has on employees and to challenge the perception that abuse of shop workers is acceptable. The guidelines called ‘Tackling Violence Against Staff’ are endorsed by trade union Usdaw. These include having clear policies against violence and abuse, robust store based risk assessments, appropriate store layout, security and preventative measures, good staff training and reporting procedures and providing support for staff after incidents.

Usdaw’s Freedom From Fear campaign against violence and abuse of shop workers was launched ten years ago and has sought to raise the profile of the issue with employers, Government, police and others. While there have been significant breakthroughs in key areas to help prevent and reduce incidents, the Union’s last survey conducted in 2010 still showed that in the previous 12 months, 6 per cent of retail staff had been subjected to violent attack, 37pc had been threatened with harm and 70pc had suffered verbal abuse.

British Retail Consortium Head of Crime, Catherine Bowen, said: “Retailers invest considerable resources in protecting their workers, stock and property. Protecting staff from violence means taking many factors into account, from the positioning of in-store CCTV to how those who do carry out attacks are prosecuted. Companies are doing a lot to prevent trouble occurring in the first place, for example by giving customer service staff training in how to avoid conflict.”

“Our new guidelines will help businesses be sure they’ve done all they can to prevent staff from being attacked or abused. The question that remains is whether the police and criminal justice system are doing all within their power to protect the country’s three million retail employees. Those who are violent or threatening towards our staff are as guilty of a crime as anyone who behaves that way on the street. The police response needs to reflect that.”

John Hicks of FRL Retail Security Services (a specialist division of Facilities Resource Limited – www.frl-group.co.uk) said: “Threats and verbal abuse of retail staff, as well as theft and robbery, are on the increase and we welcome the guidelines which will also serve to highlight the issues involved. It is no longer just a case of reviewing shop and retail cctv systems, how you tackle shoplifters or address the rise in shoplifting. ”

The BRC’s ten-page ‘Tackling Violence Against Staff – Best Practice Guidelines for Retailers’ is available online.

 

Rural Property Watch unveils new newspaper advertisement

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Rural Property Watch, a specialist division of FRL Group (Facilities Resource Limited www.frl-group.co.uk) which offers rural communities across the UK security solutions designed to meet their particular needs have unveiled their new newspaper advertisement.

Reinforcing the message that the security company has recently launched a new portable, self-powered, wireless cctv unit, the campaign is running across the south and south west of England.

Rural Property Watch offer a wide range of security solutions but the most popular with rural communities, especially farms, horse owners and equestrian centres, is battery operated wireless intruder detection alarm which does not need telephone connection or electricity – ideal as remote outbuildings and barn intruder, fire and flood alarms.

Further information can be found via the Rural Property Watch website www.ruralpropertywatch.co.uk

 

Vacant Commercial Property Management Good Practice

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Vacant commercial property security specialists, FRL Group (www.frl-group.co.uk) welcomed the launch of a new Good Practice Guide to Vacant Property Management.

The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) and vacant property contractor SitexOrbis recently launched the BIFM Good Practice Guide to Vacant Property Management. The 24-page guide aims to provide information to facilities managers who have empty buildings to manage as part of their property portfolio. It was launched at the Facilities Show, the facilities event in May at the NEC Birmingham, beside IFSEC. The guide is available online at www.bifm.org.uk/gpgs.

The guide explores the reasons why a number of commercial buildings are becoming empty, highlights some of the key problems facing vacant properties, and explains how facilities managers can close buildings and manage empty properties on a long-term basis keeping them safe, secure, in line with their insurer’s expectations and ready for reoccupation, sale or demolition. The A5 document, written by Mark Cosh, director of SitexOrbis and sponsored by the organisation, was peer reviewed by Allister Smith, property risk manager, Commercial Property Underwriting – Strategy at insurers Aviva.

The guide includes original data from the vacant property management survey of BIFM members in autumn 2011, conducted by SitexOrbis and the proposed contents received feedback from delegates at the British Institute of Facilities Management 12th quarterly training day at Bristol.

John Hicks of FRL Group said: “Security for vacant commercial premises is advancing almost daily with the new technologies becoming available. We already offer flexible portable wireless alarm systems which do not require electricity or telephone connection – either for short term hire or outright purchase. Now, we have added wireless cctv camera units which, when triggered, take still photographs and send them as MMS messages to the client’s mobile phone or our central alarm monitoring station.”

FRL Group, part of Facilities Resource Limited, offer their clients a  fully-insured key holder and alarm response service in addition to traditional mobile patrol visits out-of-hours, static guards, cctv and traditional access control and intruder alarms systems.

Uniquely, FRL Group also offer a service called FRL Guardians. Here, the UK based security company will place SIA-licensed security guards, who have been carefully vetted, to reside in unoccupied residential or hotel premises to deter intruders. They will also undertake basic maintenance to ensure that the condition of the premises do not deteriorate without the landlord’s knowledge.