Festival Leisure Park, an entertainment park in Basildon, Essex, has bridged the gap between its analogue CCTV and a forthcoming IP installation, with the install of 360 Vision Technology’s Predator Hybrid camera.
The Leisure Park attracts thousands of visitors a week, families and teenagers, and adults enjoying a meal, film, or after drinks later at bars and nightclub. The site has manned guards and a purpose-built security office, which houses the site’s CCTV control desk.
Over the life of its operation, due to architectural changes and some building additions at the park, blind spots had emerged in the surveillance system’s coverage. These gaps meant that in an incident, surveillance monitoring might miss incidents and intervention might not be possible.
Hence, the park’s management turned to security consultant Tony Lloyd of Lloyd Asset Protection. Tony’s solution took into account that whichever camera was going to be used, it would need to fulfil dual roles. Initially, the camera would not only need to integrate into the analogue system, but also be readily included into a planned IP upgrade. Tony recommended 360 Vision Technology’s Predator all-in-one PTZ camera, that features ‘patent pending’ Hybrid technology.
Tony said: “360 Vision’s Predator PTZ camera is available with many options, including infrared, white light, radar and built-in edge recording, providing either 128GB or 256GB of on-board storage. To easily upgrade from 4:3 analogue images to 1080p HD widescreen surveillance when necessary, the Hybrid option can be added to any of the Predator camera versions. The Festival Leisure Park’s security team wanted performance, reliability, and installation flexibility for the chosen new camera. With the 360 Vision Predator Hybrid, they could confidently invest their budget in the best surveillance technology today, without the need to change the camera when the planned HD infrastructure upgrade becomes available in the future. Maximising the park’s return on investment, using the Predator Hybrid camera’s technology, when the time comes to change to IP, we’ll only need to flick a switch to start seeing the benefits of full High Definition 1080p images delivered to the on-site control room.”
Lloyd Asset Protection also specified a white light LED option for the camera, which was to be installed to provide coverage for the rear exit of the park’s nightclub. From years of CCTV experience Tony specified the switchable visible light option; in part, to help defuse any incidents before they develop. This theory has proven invaluable, as since the installation of the new camera, security staff at the Leisure Park report that not only can they now see and record quality images from the rear of the nightclub building day or night, but that switching on the camera’s white light informs people that their actions are being watched and recorded – changing their behavior for the better.
Park management are now considering an extra Predator Hybrid to perform the same role at the front of the night club – further enhancing system coverage.
Tony added: “High quality camera images from the 360 Predator Hybrid have greatly enhanced the effectiveness of the CCTV system at Festival Leisure Park. In our experience, electronic surveillance is proven to be the most effective way to secure a modern leisure park, to provide a security, health & safety, and management aid in one powerful package. It empowers security staff to deal with situations before they have a chance to turn into a greater incident, allowing swift and secure resolutions to any situation, with minimal disturbance to the general public.”
