As ever, we have gone around the country to report on the latest in the UK private security sector, for our September 2016 print issue of Professional Security magazine – which you can read digitally on our website.
Yorkshire – we take up an invite to go around the British Library‘s stores at Boston Spa near Wetherby; and see for ourselves how new cameras have provided night-time video surveillance, while not bothering residential neighbours with light at night.
London – we sit in on one afternoon of Prof Chris Kemp’s training course at Wembley Stadium for event managers, and see how security ties in with the general operations of a sometimes fast-moving event; and that does not just mean the electric motor racing cars going around Battersea Park.
Essex – we hear from Mark White, the guarding provider at industrial estates in Rainham the issues of traveller incursion and night-time ‘drifters’ – mainly young men who race cars around the admittedly deserted roads of business parks – but posing a threat to their own safety and that of spectators, besides possibly leaving oil on the road as a risk to unsuspecting lorry delivery and other drivers. While a business improvement district has paid for the mobile guarding and CCTV and has resulted in real gains and peace of mind for businesses on the estates, those industrial and similar zones continue to be poor relations in terms of out of hours policing, compared to town and city centres’ night-time pubs and clubs, we hear …
Brixton, Clapham and Vauxhall – … and on that note, we are the proverbial fly on the wall at three Friday evening briefings by police and Safer London for door staff in those parts of south London, a practical and symbolic sign of partnership work between police and private security, each stretched by violence and disorder at times.
Barnsley – having featured the guarding company Active Response Security in the August print issue, we visit their offices and also hear about changes to the ISO 9001 standard, that directors of certified companies cannot ignore, we are told.
Our new contributor the IT and information security consultant Mike Gillespie of Advent IM, talks critical national infrastructure. Plus our regular contributors Una Riley and Jim Gannon, and Roy Cooper’s gossip. Plus the regular pages on new products, moves in the industry, and about installers (and training).
Among the news pages, a report on the Home Office grants for security upgrades for places of worship in England and Wales, after terrorism attacks on the Continent; a subject important enough in the United States for the authorities to hold ‘faith-based security summits‘.
