Construction site theft is on the rise, costing UK businesses over £800M per year in physical equipment costs. In reality, this figure is actually much higher when you take into consideration the multitude of other cost factors such as site downtime, replacement hire and wasted man hours associated with equipment loss.

Thieves will target all manner of assets on sites that hold any kind of value. A particularly expensive target is heavy machinery, where the likelihood of recovering stolen plant is less than 10%, largely due to identification and registration issues. Similarly, there has been a steep rise in the theft of plant accessories, costing thousands of pounds to replace and rendering the machinery itself completely useless without it.

When we look at other assets such as building materials, cabling, vehicles etc it’s clear that construction sites are a highly valuable target for both seasoned and opportunist thieves that focus on sites without adequate security.

I think we can all agree that effective security should be the absolute priority for any building company looking to protect their assets. As the UK’s leading provider of temporary CCTV security services, we are well known for our range of technologically advanced Towers, however we do find that there is less customer awareness around some of our other options. For this reason, we are re-introducing the ‘Lite’ security system, which is perfectly designed to secure smaller areas at a lower cost, making it easily accessible for even the tightest of budgets.

Why choose Lite?

The Lite is a flexible CCTV system that can be deployed almost anywhere. Due to its modular design, the system can be fitted to a wide range of fixings including scaffolding, shipping containers, buildings and even tripods, which makes it perfect for securing small footprint areas such as city centre construction projects or compounds, for example.

When securing larger sites, customers will often request 2 or more towers to cover both their site and compound areas. After a full site assessment, we are often able to recommend one tower to cover the site itself and a Lite system to secure the remaining compound area, saving the customer considerable cost. Simply put, why waste money covering a wider area than you need, or have access to a range of features that you won’t use?

All sites represent their own set of unique challenges, and one system really does not fit all. The Lite is specifically designed to effectively secure areas that require a smaller footprint, a shorter range and less features than our typical Tower option.

The Lite system is perfect for sites that require a CCTV solution with a smaller footprint

Lite vs Tower

We’ve created a comparison overview between a Lite system and a Tower, so that you can see what the differences actually are. You’ll be surprised how much the Lite has to offer.

A range of other benefits

• Our Response Team are here to monitor your site 24/7/365 and will alert the appropriate authority in the event of an emergency, suspicious activity or attempted theft on site
• Our average incident response time is less than 11 seconds
• Customers can login to our Customer Portal from either phone, tablet or computer to monitor their site in real-time
• Industry-leading average system uptime of 99.6%
• 24-hour rapid deployment throughout the UK and Ireland
• Automated ‘health checks’ monitor system efficiency and reduce customer CO2 footprint by replacing on-site inspections

This system is perfect for helping individuals to manage various on-site tasks without needing to be onsite themselves. This clearly has a wide range of benefits from general project management, delivery checks, social distancing and health and safety compliance.

What do our customers say?

“We used the Optosafe LITE system for one of our projects in Accrington, where we had a small compound with expensive plant and machinery that needed protecting. The LITE system was a cost effective solution that was mounted on the side of our site offices and the wireless detectors meant we didn’t have cables trailing. We have continued to use Optosafe as our security partner and would use the LITE system on our sites, where we have limited footprint available.”

Lee Farrar, Site Agent – Cheetham Hill Construction Limited

“The Optosafe Lite offers us a cost effective solution for our residential development sites, we especially like the audio challenge feature for scaring off intruders. We leave our security to their expertise.”

Development Director – Property Roads

Our team are here to help

As all sites are unique, we offer a free no-obligation site assessment to help advise you on the best solution to match your individual needs. Our team are ready to help, whether you’d like an informal chat or a bit more information at this stage, so please get in touch today and let us show you how we can secure your assets at a fraction of the usual cost.