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A Guide to Car Park Security & Maintenance


A Guide to Car Park Security & Maintenance

Car park security is critical to all businesses to help prevent crime and a tarnished reputation. Many businesses are reluctant to spend the required money on improving their car parks security but here are reasons why you should.

The Risk of an Unsecure Car Park

Car parks can be a dangerous place at times, especially during the night and can attract the wrong audience if your security is lacking.

At night, your unsecure car park can be a prime candidate to groups of people who meet in their vehicles and criminals, both can cause significant damage to the car park surface and surrounding buildings. Installing car park barriers will help actively reduce the chance of crime and vandalism.

How to Secure your Company Car Park

There are a number of ways to secure your company car park. Traditional methods such as rising arm traffic barriers and manual swing arm barriers are effective ways to secure your car park from unauthorised vehicles. Bollards are smaller, yet offer high levels of security to your businesses car park, and as bollards can be collapsed, they allow easy access for authorised vehicle access and when raised, they help to prevent vehicles from accessing, day or night.

CCTV is an obvious way to keep your companies car park secure, it allows you to monitor your car park 24-7 and footage can be saved if required. More modern technology available for car park security is ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) which scans vehicles number plates and automatically lifts the barriers in place if the vehicle has been authorised.

Having a secure car park is a reassurance to staff, customers and clients as they know their unattended car is safe throughout the day or overnight. Unprotected car parks are perfect for vehicle crime, theft and anti-social behaviour, and so having a security barrier in place will reduce the risk of this happening.

Car Park Security Solutions

Here are our top car park security solutions that your business can install to prevent unauthorised access:

Security Barriers

Security barriers are also a popular choice for securing parking facilities, especially those that are often busy, as they are adaptable to a number of circumstances.

The main benefit of traffic control barriers, aside from the additional security they provide, is the ability to control and restrict the flow of traffic in and out of your underground parking facility. This can be hugely beneficial in the longer term by making your facility more efficient and effective.

Furthermore, the majority of security barriers come in automatic variants that can be customised and paired with additional features and accessories such as keypad control, a ticketing system or ANPR.

CCTV

Traditional methods such as CCTV and security gates remain an effective method of securing a number of facilities including underground parking areas and can act as a strong deterrent. The main benefit of CCTV over other security systems is the ability to monitor any criminal activity that may take place; however that is where the benefits stop.

For parking facilities, security barriers are much more applicable as they act as a physical deterrent to the car park as well managing the flow of traffic in and out.

Signage

Many incidents in car parks occur because of poor signage and, therefore, it is important to make sure that the rules of the car park are outlined clearly through signs. Ensure that you have large, clear signage throughout your car park that indicates where people should be driving, the speed limit for the car park and where pedestrians can cross. It is also important to ensure that signs can be read throughout the car parks operation times which may include reflective signage if your car park is open during the later hours.

Height Restrictors

Height restrictors are more for safety than anything else and work best when car parks aren’t suitable for larger vehicles. Whilst it might be obvious that a car park is not suited for large vehicles, without a height restriction bar you have no control over who can and can’t enter. Having a visual deterrent in place can be essential when preventing incidents from occurring within the car park that may prevent others from using it.

Bollards

Bollards are another car park security option that businesses should consider. Manual bollards are a great alternative to a security barrier and will prevent unauthorised vehicles from gaining access to your premises. During the night they are a visual deterrent but in the day when lowered, they are sleek and perfect for business that have heavy traffic in and out of their premises and a range of vehicle sizes such as lorries as barriers may still restrict their access.

Car Park Safety

The first step to ensuring that car parks are safe is to always have safety in mind even when designing the car park. This doesn’t necessarily mean before constructing the car park, safety by design can involve following some simple best practices with the aim of ensuring that pedestrians and vehicles can navigate the car park in a safe manner. It is therefore recommended that car parks and parking areas should:

  • Be clearly sign posted.
  • Allow clear visibility for drivers and pedestrians.
  • Have well drained surfaces.
  • Have clearly marked parking and walking areas.

It is also recommended that car parks have sufficient traffic control systems in place such as automatic barriers or bollards to restrict and manage the flow of traffic.

Following these best practices can greatly reduce the risks of accidents and injuries in your car parks and are half the battle when ensuring a car park is safe.

It is also important however to ensure that car parks are as protected as they can be from crimes such as vehicle theft. The most effective method of achieving this is the installation of an access control barrier that can be secured when necessary to keep vehicles safe and protected.

How to Maintain your Car Park

It is important that parking areas, as well as any attached paths or roads, are maintained regularly and effectively to ensure that they are suitable for vehicles and safe to use.

Whilst ensuring that a car park is fully maintained may seem like a difficult task the processes involved are relatively simple. Correct car park maintenance involves aspects such as ensuring roads and paths aren’t too smooth, are gritted if there is a risk of ice or snow and are kept clear of oil, grease, rubbish and other debris that may impact a vehicle or pedestrian.

Surfaces should also be kept free of pot holes and other surface defects and should be drained regularly if there is a risk of flooding.

It is also important to remember that any access control solutions a car park may have, such as security barriers or bollards, are correctly maintained as any malfunction of equipment could cause damage or injury and the car park owner or operator could be held accountable.

Improve your Car Park Security with Newgate

If you are looking to improve your businesses car park security, then look no further! We have a range of car park security solutions that can help your business. We consult, design, manufacture bespoke made to your exact requirements. To get started, contact our friendly team online today!

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