Last week a burglary was prevented at an indoor leisure activity centre by Farsight’s security operators monitoring CCTV in Birmingham. Our Eagle eyed CCTV operators were alerted to a perimeter intrusion attempt at 10.39 pm on a dark winters night. They proactively issued an audio deterrent warning and alerted the police after visually verifying what was unfolding at the site – in real time. The audio warning was effective in immediately deterring the intruders, stopping them in their tracks. In fact, two cars were subsequently captured on CCTV seen fleeing the scene, at speed!
This venue is one of thousands of leisure sector businesses across the West Midlands, and indeed the whole country, to be closed to the public during lockdown restrictions. Farsight supports the venue with out of hours CCTV monitoring service to optimise the site’s security measures at times when staff are not present at the premises.
This incident demonstrates just how remotely issued audio warnings, when combined with monitored CCTV in Birmingham, can be so effective in proactively deterring incidents from progressing. On this particular occasion, it appears that the intruders were actually attempting to break in to a neighbouring site by accessing it from our client’s site. In addition, the CCTV footage also allowed the site owners to discover where and how the intruders gained access. This enabled the owners to pinpoint the weak spot and shore up their defences.
Understanding where threats come from, from who and where the weak spots are is critical to planning proactive and effective security measures…
Who is watching your business security?
Ensuring adequate defensive measures are in place is a crucial consideration for maintaining business security. Burglary and vandalism can be devastating to any business whatever the size, across every sector. In fact, 1 in 5 businesses are negatively affected by crime.
For businesses, there are many threats to consider – including becoming targeted by organised criminal gangs as well as Anti Social Behaviour.
Organised Gangs
22% of reported crimes across the UK were burglaries (including attempts) and it is thought that 40% of these were carried out by ‘organised groups of criminals.’ The effects of this are far reaching whatever sector a business operates in.
Take for example the crimewave trend that is sweeping the UK at the moment – car part thefts. This is causing major issues for car dealership across the country who are persistently targeted for gangs looking to steal LED headlights and catalytic converters. In Birmingham alone there were 320 catalytic converter thefts over the past 3 years, only second to London in reported thefts.
We have even seen a rise in gangs stealing pallets from industrial sites, on an industrial scale, not to mention the countless attempts to steal plant equipment, commercial vehicles, rural theft and empty property breaches too.
Anti-Social Behaviour
Whether it is youths intruding on construction sites to do stunts or thieves targeting plant equipment, vehicle thefts or vandalism and malicious damage – anti-social behaviour and petty crime costs UK businesses £9.8 billion a year, according to leading business insurer, RSA.
Talk to your local Farsight Security representative in the West Midlands, request a call back here
Are you at risk from crime in Birmingham?
It may surprise you when you see the crime statistics for January to December 2020… a whopping 322,797 crimes were reported to the West Midlands Police which is the second largest police force in the country, covering an area of 348 square miles and serving a population of almost 2.6 million. Out of these 19,823 were burglary, 6,904 robbery, 27,246 vehicle crime, 121,221 violent crime and 54,704 were Anti-Social Behaviour incidents which include property damage and arson.
Rural areas of the West Midlands have not escaped the rising affects of rural crime across the region, which has reached an 11 year high. According to the NFU Mutual Rural Crime Report 2020, rural crime saw a 5% increase in 2019 on the previous year – costing a whopping £872,540. This rise was mainly driven by thefts of high-value tractors, quad bikes and other farm vehicles – carried out by highly organised criminal gangs.
Looking at Birmingham constituency areas specifically in December 2020 alone, there were a total of 11,691 crimes reported. A summary of some of the reported categories are below:
| Constituency | ASB (Anti- Social Behaviour) | Burglary | Robbery | Vehicle Crime | Violent Crime |
| Edgbaston | 140 | 102 | 25 | 82 | 532 |
| Erdington | 174 | 79 | 44 | 73 | 616 |
| Hall Green | 167 | 74 | 26 | 85 | 518 |
| Hodge Hill | 214 | 51 | 24 | 89 | 629 |
| Ladywood | 401 | 102 | 76 | 196 | 968 |
| Northfield | 110 | 98 | 19 | 79 | 583 |
| Perry Barr | 133 | 71 | 30 | 75 | 636 |
| Yardley | 162 | 56 | 29 | 97 | 631 |
| | | | | |
| TOTALS | 1,501 | 633 | 273 | 776 | 5,113 |
These figures show just how important it is to consider the right security measures for you to your protect premises, assets and people. Many homes across the West Midlands have burglar alarms fitted to deter criminals, and certainly for business premises Fire & Intruder alarms are crucial. As a leading Category II ARC (Alarm Receiving Centre), Farsight monitor thousands of alarms across the country and work with a dedicated network of alarm system installers.
Important note: With BT OpenReach’s PSTN Switchover just around the corner, Joel Babb – CTO at Farsight urges anyone with a alarm system to make sure it stays operational when phone lines change to ALL-IP. “Speak to us or your security installer to ensure that your alarm signalling equipment is future proofed. We have written some articles to outline what it’s all about and some of your options: Is it time to future proof your alarm system? or Is your Alarm Signalling at risk?”
However, adding a monitored CCTV system to your security will give you the peace of mind that trained professionals are proactively watching over what is important to you…
Why consider monitored CCTV in Birmingham?
CCTV in Birmingham is nothing new. In fact, there are 258 public space CCTV cameras, which include 135 Community Safety cameras spread across 16 wards. This reduced number follows the reduction of 62 Community Safety cameras which were earmarked to be decommissioned in 2019 following operational equipment assessments.
However, particularly for high worth residential properties and businesses, including monitored CCTV in Birmingham has become a crucial next step to delivering an optimised security defence that packs a punch. CCTV systems that are monitored by Farsight deliver the peace of mind that highly trained security professionals are watching over what’s important to you from our state-of-the-art central monitoring station.
Rather than watching retrospective CCTV footage recordings of incidents after they have happened, and the damage has been done, Farsight’s CCTV operators respond to alarms proactively, ensuring that relevant actions are taken in ‘real time’ to deter, prevent and escalate incidents to emergency services when necessary. This reduces false alarms and increases the levels of response you can expect from blue light services with visual verification in play.
Talk to your local Farsight Security representative in the West Midlands, request a call back here
How remote CCTV monitoring works
We’ve created a short video to help you understand how remote CCTV monitoring works.
The video explains how Farsight security operators monitor CCTV in Birmingham and across the UK from our Farsight Observatory:
Remote monitoring is a cost-effective security solution that protects your business, commercial property or home from criminal and environmental damage. Your CCTV and/or fire and intruder alarm system will be connected to a remote monitoring station via the Internet.
This connection can be live 24/7 or only switched on at times when your site is unattended. If an intruder, fire or other unusual activity is detected by your security system, an alarm is sent to the remote monitoring station.
At Farsight, our operators answer alarms faster than the industry average. When an alarm is answered, footage from your CCTV cameras is routed directly to an operator’s monitoring screen.
The operators then pan and zoom cameras to investigate the cause of the alarm. At Farsight, our operators use multiple cameras to view the site from different angles – a crucial step in ensuring intruders cannot hide in any blind spots.
If suspicious activity is spotted, the operator will take immediate action. They will notify the emergency services and call the key holder for your site.
If there is an intruder at your site a live audio warning will swiftly be issued:
“Your attention please, this is a security announcement. You are being monitored and recorded on live CCTV. This is private property. Leave now, or further action will be taken.”
In the majority of cases as seen in the above CCTV in Birmingham incident, an audio warning will deter intruders from your site. If your site remains at risk the operators update the emergency services and keyholders.
The below video shows the effectiveness of a CCTV audio warning in protecting this commercial premises from an attempted perimeter breach by two hooded intruders. (Turn your sound on…)
As the operator has visually verified the alarm, there will be added credibility to the police call and will support a higher priority emergency response. You can read more about audio warnings in our blog article entitled: what are audio warnings and how do they work?
Remote monitoring can save you thousands of pounds in potential losses via theft, criminal damage and fire. Efficient monitoring ensures your CCTV security system is an investment worth making.
If you would like to discuss protecting your business with monitored CCTV in Birmingham or find out our more about how Farsight’s range of remote security monitoring services could bolster your business security – whether CCTV or alarm monitoring, access control or lone worker protection – let’s talk. Either call the Farsight team on 0845 371 0101 or drop us a line in the form below…
