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Newgate Blog

The Challenges Of Caravan Park Security

Published: 11th September 2019


The UK has rediscovered holidaying at home and the good news for caravan parks is that this looks to be far more than just a fad brought on for economic reasons. It is also being driven by sustainability and convenience in that it avoids the pain of dealing with busy airports, especially when you have children. This is great news for caravan parks but it does bring a new set of challenges. In particular, it increases the demands on caravan park security.

Caravan park security needs to be (almost) invisible but very effective

Leisure facilities have to establish and maintain a fun ambience while still ensuring that people are kept safe (and that theft and damage to personal property is kept to an absolute minimum). In a leisure environment it is very much preferable that security is managed in a way which is aesthetically pleasing, or at least aesthetically acceptable, and it is crucial that it is done in a way which will minimise inconvenience to genuine visitors.

All security begins with securing your perimeter

Stopping unauthorised access (even unintentional unauthorised access) is a crucial step in making caravan parks a safe place to be. Most caravan owners will understand this and will probably accept a slight degree of inconvenience as a trade-off for security. The important point to note, however, is that they will expect caravan park owners to do everything they reasonably can to keep this inconvenience to a minimum.

In practical terms, this means investing in robust security hardware and creating effective, workable processes to ensure that it is managed in a way which provides the customer with a seamless experience. Here are a couple points to consider.

Perimeter barriers need to fit the space available

Rising arm barriers and security bollards are both very space-efficient and hence can be a great choice (or, indeed, the only choice) at access points where there is little room to maneuver. They do a very efficient job of keeping out vehicles and hence preventing cars and caravans from being stolen, but aren’t necessarily as good at keeping out humans on foot (or bicycles). Gates, by contrast, need space to swing or slide, but they can be a whole lot more effective at keeping out thieves after small valuables rather than the vehicles themselves.

Perimeter barriers need to be operated as quickly as possible

In principle, automatic barriers have the edge here as they can be automated or, at the very least, operated remotely from a control room. For the record, however, it’s important to have a back-up process for automated systems as they are not (yet) 100% reliable. In particular, they are dependent on cameras being able to read number plates correctly and relay them either to an Automatic Number Plate Recognition system or to a screen viewed by a human operator. If anything gets in the way of the camera, it may be unable to perform correctly and a human will need to intervene. Manual systems tend to be best suited to smaller caravan parks and the good news is that they can work with a high degree of efficiency, especially if customers are advised to call ahead at a certain point in their journey so that a staff member can be waiting for them at the entrance (or at least on their way).

What is ANPR?

Automatic Number Plate Recognition started out as an experimental technology used by the police and has now matured to the point where it is now regularly used for mainstream traffic management.

ANPR on its own has relatively little benefit to the holiday and caravan parks industry, but when it is combined with automatic rising arm barriers, it can become a meaningful solution to the challenge of managing security in holiday and caravan parks.

How can ANPR be used for caravan parks?

Effective security starts with managing your access points

At a basic level, most security revolves around the concept of access management. In the holiday and caravan parks environment that means ensuring that only authorised guests, staff and visitors have access to the main site.

Smaller sites may be able to rely on labour-intensive systems such as key-operated manual gates, however, these days that approach is only really suitable in a very limited range of environments where guests have been primed to expect a fairly bare-bones approach, for example in small-scale farms which have a few spaces for caravans.

ANPR and security barriers make for seamless check-in and check-out

ANPR on its own informs the relevant people, who is trying to enter (or leave) your premises.

This pairing can provide meaningful security in a way which is seamless to the customer and almost completely removes the burden on staff, who will only have to step in occasionally when unusual circumstances occur, such as when a legitimate customer changes their vehicle and forgets to update their booking or when they get their reservation dates mixed up.

These days, many ANPR systems also allow for white-listing of number plates to facilitate the processing of regular visitors such as staff and the blacklisting of number plates to make it easier to keep out vehicles which have been identified as undesirable.

Caravan park security by Newgate

If your caravan park requires modern security solutions, the Newgate is here for you. We can assess your site and provide expert advice on what solution suits your site to ensure high levels of security. For more information or to arrange a free consultation to discuss your security requirements, please contact us on 0808 156 1561 or email websales@newgate.uk.com

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