Retail - South Mimms

First ‘Secured Car Park’ award for motorway services

Thanks to a remarkable level of co-operation between the police, local council and private sector, the motorway services situated at the junction of the M25 and A1, just north of London, has become the first facility of its kind to win the Secured Car Parks award.

Operated by Welcome Break, the South Mimms service area has invested £300,000 in a mix of integrated security measures devised to tackle a variety of criminal activity, mostly vehicle related but also including a preponderance of unauthorised traders, and theft from retail outlets. Joining forces with the Metropolitan Police and Hertsmere Borough Council in 1999, a crime prevention strategy was conceived that would end up being so effective, that within a short period of the scheme becoming operational, the services’ recorded crime rate of about 100 incidents per month, would plummet to just four or five!

Designed and installed by CCTV & Access Control company, Quadrant Video Systems Plc., in conjunction with other on-site security measures, a sophisticated CCTV surveillance system that features a mix of high-speed camera domes and static JVC TK-C1380 colour cameras, is now securing the services’ 700-vehicle car park, fuel station and main building. Deemed as a priority at the services, the high-visibility profile for security is enhanced by the system’s car park cameras being displayed on monitors above the cash tills, in the service’s retail outlets.

Capitalising on the facilities available at Quadrant’s nearby town centre installations of Borehamwood and Elstree, South Mimms services, which attracts over 5 million vehicles a year, is monitored both on-site and from the nearby Hertsmere Borough Council’s Security Control Centre. At each location, the selection and control of the system’s high-resolution cameras is entrusted to Synectics X250 Keyboards and supported by ‘Tesseract’ video matrix camera mainframe switching equipment.

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