Letting and estate agents are a growing market for the installation of CCTV. That’s the view of Darren Roe, Operations Manager at Ecl-ips an Advanced MOBOTIX partner, which has installed its fifth system in this sector in only a few months.
Darren Roe says: “People often think of pubs, clubs and banks as the only place you will find CCTV on the high street. But we have seen a substantial increase in requests from letting agencies, estate agents and smaller retails outlets over the last few months.”
Spaces and Places are one such client, who recently installed CCTV after a burglary, “We had never really considered CCTV before but we had a burglary recently where a thief got away with a substantial sum of money after bypassing our alarm system and it made us revaluate our security” says proprietor David Kernaghan.
Spaces and Places, based in Weston-super-Mare, is typical of many high street letting agents, as Kernaghan adds: “We needed CCTV not just for night time security but to protect our staff during the daytime, especially when we have abusive or aggressive people coming into our premises or if a dispute arises.”
Kernaghan sought CCTV that would be very discreet, with little backroom equipment or maintenance, “We also wanted a system we could view remotely, either from the main office or at night from home to check on the premises if an alarm was triggered.”
Ecl-ips recommended and installed a MOBOTIX Q22 IP camera. Darren Roe says: “The model is particularly suited to small high street locations like letting agents as a single camera can monitor an entire main area with its 360 degree view. In addition, the Q22 we installed has a removable 16GB Flash memory card, so in the case of Spaces and Places, they can record a loop of three continuous days worth of footage without the need for any special PC or video storage device which reduces costs and makes the system maintenance free.”
Also there is two way audio, audio recording and playback of pre-recorded messages or warnings of an event, which, the makers say, makes the CCTV a proactive, rather than a reactive solution.
“I am not a technical person but the new system is incredibly simple to use,” says Kernaghan, “If I hear raised voices in the outer office, I can just click on an icon on my desktop PC and check to see that everything is ok and if somebody is getting abusive, we can point out that we have a CCTV system and that usually acts as a deterrent and calms the situation down.”
Kernaghan but he believes the advantages of his system are mainly in staff safety and training via the two way audio. Multiple outlets can be monitored for safety, training and marketing purposes, from one central location.
At the Association of Residential Letting Agents, Ian Potter, Operations Manager points out, “Most of our members tend not to handle cash,” However, as Potter adds: “It’s not unusual to hear of staff being subjected to aggressive behaviours and the association can understand CCTV being used in those circumstances.”
Mike Lewis, MOBOTIX, UK and EIRE Country Manager, says: “Letting agencies and smaller retail outlets don’t tend to have dedicated facilities or security managers and what they need is simplicity and cost efficiency. The Q22 is a good choice for deployment within these small office and retail environments as it is designed to be very unobtrusive, offer hi -resolution images and audio but without needing a complicated back end system to manage the camera or DVR to store video footage all at a very affordable price.”
