How to prevent trespassers and vandalism on a building site

With two million acts of vandalism and losses of £800 million per year, the construction industry needs strong security measures to prevent trespassers and vandals from entering their building sites.  

You could be held responsible for injuries

Companies need to be particularly careful ensuring sites are locked and secured as following an amendment to the Occupiers Liability Act in 1984, you (the site occupier) owe a duty of care towards anyone on your premises – including trespassers.   Any injury they might sustain becomes the responsibility of the site owner or occupier.

Depending on the location of the building site it could be a popular place for homeless people to find shelter or used by people drinking or taking drugs. Trespassers might also simply be kids looking for something to do and daring each other to go where they shouldn’t.  

Work with the local community

You can help prevent at least some of these by working with the local community; helping charities, sports centres or other organisations who provide support to these groups.  That way you will be giving something back to the local area as well as preventing damage and problems on your sites.

Community support work will only go so far towards solving the problem though, and it’s important to make sure your building sites are properly secured.  Fencing, gates, locks and alarms are essential, especially when accessing the site can be dangerous.  Motion sensor lighting will put off a lot of opportunistic vandals and CCTV, which can also be set to motion sensor recording will, if not prevent vandalism, provide you with evidence and images of those involved.

Security guards

The use of night time security guards is also worth considering if you have a lot of trouble, and/or have expensive equipment on site.  The number of guards needed will depend on the size of the site and the potential problems; a good security company should be able to carry out a site survey and give you a recommendation. The guards can carry out regular but randomly timed patrols of the site.

It’s worth keeping a record of any incidents you have so you can review your security requirements on a regular basis.  This will help keep your costs down as you can target the problem times and areas, and if you work with a security company they should be able to help you do this.

If you’d like Leisuresec to take a look at your building site and review your security requirements please get in touch.