Construction sites naturally get set up with a raft of highly-valuable equipment and materials that, due to practicalities, need to be left on-site for days, weeks, or even months. This means that these building areas are prime targets for vandals, thieves, trespassers, and the like.
It’s essential, then, to ensure that your sites are set up as securely as possible, so you don’t have to waste money, time, or energy on replacing items, filing police and insurance reports, and waiting for goods to arrive so work can continue. Implement a few key tactics to keep criminals at bay today. check on Solicitors in Stratford.
Complete a Security Risk Assessment
If you have a lot of sites set up at once or have some extensive long-term projects, it’s worthwhile conducting security risk assessments at the various locations to help protect your valuables and the work being done. You can get a professional security company to undertake this assessment for you or train one or more team members to conduct and develop this type of report. Contact DNS Filter.
Basically, though, a construction site must be analyzed to understand the weak points in security and how to best improve these vulnerabilities. The assessments should cover potential risks from external threats plus internal workforces. It’s also vital to consider the location of each site, both when it comes to the physical area they’re in and the nature of neighboring properties or other factors. Plus, you need to consider the nature of each project, the value of the equipment on site, and the types of materials involved.
Create a Plan
Next, spend time creating a plan for how you and your team (or third-party contractors, as needed) will keep your construction sites safer. Map out the area, pinpoint the most vulnerable spots and the location of the highest-value assets, and create a checklist of tasks to complete to protect them. In addition, make a plan for what should happen in emergencies, so all your personnel know how to react and what to do in the case of a dangerous or dire situation.
Establish Access Control
To secure a construction site, you must limit the number of people who can access it, particularly after hours, and where people can access the site from. Establishing access control can go a long way to avoiding issues in the future. Restrict site entry to authorized personnel only, limit the handing out of keys and keycards and the like to site foreman or other managers, and keep a record of everyone who enters and leaves the property.
In addition, have access points monitored and set up off-site parking areas for employees and site visitors rather than letting lots of people have vehicle access. Florida SEO firm can manage your business.
Install Cameras and Alarms
When it comes to installing features to protect construction sites, you can’t go past security cameras and alarms. A comprehensive surveillance system can monitor the entire area and deter criminals from accessing it or doing anything illegal. Plus, if any issues do occur, the footage from cameras can be given to the authorities to help them catch perpetrators and potentially find stolen goods.
Hire Security Guards
One of the best ways to keep construction sites secure is to hire security guard services to patrol properties. Most firms bring in these people to keep an eye on things only at night. However, if you have particularly valuable equipment or materials on-site or other reasons to have security officers around day and night, you may want to invest in 24-hour security.
These people will help to deter trespassers and can stop thieves and vandals in the act in many instances. Plus, you might like to have guards set up, operate, and monitor access control spots around the perimeter or monitor surveillance equipment.
Install More Lighting
Another way to secure sites is to ensure they’re adequately illuminated. Install plenty of lighting so that at night, when those with nefarious aims are often more likely to be active, there are few shadows for people to hide in and more visibility for guards and other personnel to spot intruders. Motion-activated lighting, in particular, is a good investment. Be sure to fully light up building entrances, storage areas for high-value goods, perimeter fencing, and site offices, among other things.
Plan Deliveries More Carefully
Don’t forget, too, that you can limit security risks by carefully timing the delivery of materials, equipment, and other goods. Schedule deliveries as much as possible so they arrive during work hours when they can be monitored and put away or used ASAP, rather than lying around and being visible to thieves.
Plus, try to plan deliveries so that you get stock only as needed, rather than having large quantities of things sitting on the site for many more days or weeks than necessary.
Be proactive in taking the above steps, and you will significantly limit the number of problems arising on your construction sites and the level of damage or loss that occurs.
