Theft and Vandalism cost the Construction Industry £1 million a day

Vacant Property Specialists (VPS), a market leader in protecting vacant properties, has published a special construction edition to its well-received “Guards versus Technology” white paper issued last year, revealing that some 500 machines are stolen monthly from construction and rural sites, costing the industry £1 million a day.

“We’ve launched this special edition white paper on construction site security for two main reasons,” said Simon Alderson, the Development Director for VPS and the elected Chairman of the Vacant Property Protection Group of the BSIA, the British Security Industry Association.

“Firstly, the data on plant and equipment theft from construction sites is staggering. One in five sites experience vandalism weekly, at least £400 million of plant and equipment get stolen annually, and because a pitifully small percentage of that is ever recovered, such thefts are seen as a ‘low-risk’ gamble.

“Secondly, we have tracked across the whole range of security options, so we could compare the pros and cons of the use of the more traditional security methods such as guards, with the increasingly sophisticated technologies available today.

“Guards are the right choice in certain contexts, but lower-cost, highly capable technological options are fast chasing that market. A SmartTower CCTV for example is a protection and monitoring system that can be installed in any location, no matter how remote or challenging, and can be moved, added to or reduced in capacity according to the dynamics of an ever changing construction site.

“Sometimes the best-fit solution combines fewer manned security guards with more specialist technologies. Better, more dynamic security strategies for building sites are required,” he concluded.

The White paper itself can be found here