Solar powered CCTV Tower with remote monitoring provides reassurance for business car park users

Home Office figures in January 2019 show a 50% rise in vehicle thefts over the previous five years and crime statistics reveal a car is stolen every 5 minutes in Britain. There are no specific figures on car park crimes, such as attacks on drivers, but violent crime is on the rise everywhere and a quiet car park can be a dangerous place if you happen to be there at the wrong time.

Laura Peach is a Recruitment Business Manager for the Office Angels Group whose team work long hours and are often in the office soon after 7 in the morning, and still there at 7 in the evening. Laura explains: “We see job applicants all week, generally around 25, and many want to come for an interview before or after their current work; it goes with the territory of what we do”. Laura also has a number of staff who report to her, many of whom have the same worries about being secure in deserted locations after dark. Even the most assertive or self-confident people are right to be concerned for their personal safety.

Weekends on the park are the same; the buildings there are all mostly offices with a Monday to Friday regime so the site is an eerie place on Saturdays and Sundays, even during the day. It’s a very convenient place to work for many, however, with plenty of car parking spaces for employees and visitors and deliveries, but those same car parks keep the buildings wide apart, and the decorative greenery is the haunt of wildlife. There’s nothing like a sudden bird flutter in the branches or a fox screech to make one jump.

Safety of staff

Ben Martin is Managing Director of Decimo Project Engineering, specialists in heating and ventilation, and their offices occupy the same building as Office Angels. Most of Ben’s staff are male but they have concerns about deserted, dark car parks as well, albeit for different reasons. Yes, men are just as worried for their personal safety as women, and rightly so, but Ben is also responsible for the security of his company’s vehicles and needs to ensure they won’t be stolen, vandalised or broken into when they are left overnight or at weekends.

“Our vehicles don’t carry much in the way of equipment or tools but would-be thieves don’t know that, and vehicle break-ins are at an all-time high. It’s impractical for my staff to remove absolutely everything from their vehicles every time they leave them.” This might not seem to pose a threat to his company’s assets but Ben doesn’t want to risk it.

The solution

All these concerns came to an end when Clearway installed one of our state-of-the-art inView CCTV Towers in the car park. Running on solar power and batteries, operating 24/7/365, and with a near 360° view of the surroundings, this unique CCTV technology monitors everything and everybody who comes and goes.

When it senses movement at night, its powerful LEDs illuminate the area and record whatever caused the activation. Each activation is accompanied by an automated spoken voice message to inform that live site CCTV is active and recording.

Footage from the camera is relayed to our NSI Gold accredited Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) and, if anything untoward is identified, security guards or the police can be called instantly.

Laura says some of her visiting job seekers are often a bit disconcerted when a disembodied voice speaks to them, but once they’re inside the building and the purpose explained as being for their own safety and security, they often say they wish more car parks offered the same protection.

Likewise, Ben goes home at night secure in the knowledge that an all-seeing eye is keeping watch and protecting his valuable property. (Read more about our car park security services here).

An inView mobile CCTV Tower on site is a great deterrent to anyone looking to target a lone worker or break into any vehicle or even a building when nobody else is around. Read more about building site security here.