In the light of recent events, matters of security are understandably uppermost in most of our minds, says Ian Kerr, managing director of fencing product manufacturer Lochrin Bain.
It makes it all the more surprising that local councils should expose themselves to unnecessary and avoidable risk by ordering sub-standard security fencing from unscrupulous companies whose products do not comply with British Standards and do not provide them with the level of security they require.
And those local councils that seek to save money by simply choosing the cheapest fencing available without paying sufficient heed to the quality of fencing, could find such a tactic to be revealed subsequently as a false economy which could wind up putting both the physical security of local public buildings, and the security of their own finances, at risk. Councils need to ensure that they protect themselves from the potentially devastating financial consequences of receiving substandard fencing by making certain, so far as is practicably possible, that their properties are protected sufficiently against vandalism by the best quality fencing.
That substandard fencing is sometimes delivered is because fences are considered by many councils as nothing other than a necessary evil and, working on the mistaken assumption that one fence is much like another, the cost of a fence per metre is the sole criterion for selecting a supplier.
But rather than an immediate cost per metre, councils would be better advised to take a longer term view and give some thought to the lifetime costs when purchasing a fence; and to check whether or not the least expensive fence quoted does in fact conform to the required standard.
Those councils that find themselves on the receiving end of a cheap, sub-standard fence, will more than likely incur significant costs subsequently through, for example, the need to hire a company to mend it when it is vandalised and breached by intruders; not to mention the damage to the property that vandals, having breached the sub-standard fence so easily, will proceed to inflict.
That is why, rather than simply selecting the cheapest fence available, councils would be better advised to give some consideration to which fence offers the best value and has the potential for a lifetime cost saving. And councils should always inspect carefully the security fence delivered against that which they had specified to ensure that they are one and the same.
Unfortunately, however, not all councils are exercising the necessary degree of caution and have proceeded to outlay significant expenditure on security fencing that does not comply with British Standards. While that might be acceptable if the fencing has been specified merely to act as a deterrent against vandals and intruders, but if the fencing is required to act to a recognised standard, this is clearly far from acceptable.
For the record, the British Standard for palisade fencing is BS 1722-12, yet much of the fencing installed to protect public buildings throughout Britain, falls short of that standard. Indeed, some very considerable organisations, in both the public and the private sector, are getting ripped off by other fencing manufacturers whose products do not comply with British Standards and I would urge them to undertake an urgent review of their fencing to investigate whether it does indeed comply with British Standards.
Imagine the potentially tragic ramifications of a security fence installed to protect a public building being breached and resulting in a serious injury being incurred by a member of the public as a direct result. And imagine, too, the prospect of the expensive and protracted legal case the council might then be drawn into should it transpire subsequently that the fence in question did not in fact conform to British Standards.
Only a security fence made from materials that comply with BS 1722-12 will help cut down the incidence of trespassing and vandalism and, if the fence itself is designed so that the palisades pass through a solid horizontal rail, then it will also have a valuable time delay deterrent over conventional, front-fixed palisades.
One obvious way for councils to confirm the quality of the fencing they have specified is to check its weight. Thereโs only one way for manufacturers to cheat; and that is to use a thinner gauge material. But councils would be best advised to give due consideration to the lifetime costs of the fencing they specify before they reach that stage as failure to do so could expose them to unnecessarily high levels of risk.
