What is Secured By Design?
Secured by Design (SBD) is the official police security initiative that works to improve the security of buildings and their immediate surroundings to provide safe places to live, work, shop and visit.
Secured By Design’s origins
During the housing boom of the 1960s to 1980s, the UK saw the construction of new buildings and housing estates which lacked basic security measures.
Burglars found externally glazed doors and windows easy to enter and new urban features – such as sky walkways and subways – provided havens for criminal activity and easy escape routes.
This caused a significant rise in burglaries and in 1989, The Police Service set up Secured By Design to combat the upsurge.
And since 1989, SBD has built up a wealth of experience in promoting crime prevention and security. The organisation has constantly adapted its advice to keep pace with changing patterns of criminal behaviour.
The organisation has achieved some significant success, including one million homes built to SBD standards over the last 30 years and an overall reduction in property crime of 60 per cent since 1989.
Designing out crime
SBD plays a significant crime prevention role in the planning process to ‘design out’ crime in a wide range of building sectors, working collaboratively with local authorities, housing associations, builders and developers. SBD works with these organisations and companies to incorporate its police crime prevention standards in buildings and developments, from initial concept and design through to construction and completion.
UK police forces have specially trained Designing Out Crime Officers (DOCOs) who offer police designing out crime and Secured By Design advice.
DOCOs work with architects, developers and planners at the design stage to improve the physical security of buildings and incorporate crime prevention techniques in the layout and landscaping of their surroundings.
The Secured By Design Police Preferred Specification
SBD developed a product-based accreditation 20 years ago – the Police Preferred Specification.
Police Preferred Specification provides a recognised standard for all security products that can deter and reduce crime.
For a product to have achieved Police Preferred Specification – and be awarded independent certification – it must undergo robust initial testing, and regular re-tests. Achieving Police Preferred Specification is an extremely thorough process and in addition to the testing, it includes inspections of the manufacturer’s production facility to ensure the correct processes are maintained constantly over time to provide a more secure and reliable product.
This Police Preferred Specification is set higher than the level of security called for within Part Q of the Building Regulations in England 2010, which became effective in October 2015.
SBD is the only way for companies to obtain police recognition for security-related products in the UK.
There are more than 700 companies registered with SBD and thousands of products have achieved the Police Preferred Specification.
Secured By Design and ExMesh™
The Expanded Metal Company – the manufacturer of ExMesh™ security solutions – joined Secured By Design in 2001.
As a pioneer in the development of physical security solutions and expanded metal perimeter fencing, we believe that it is vital to work with industry leading bodies such as SBD and give end users and contractors full confidence in the effectiveness of our products.
We are proud to say that we were the first security fencing manufacturer to gain accreditation for our products under the SBD scheme.
For more information on Secured By Design, click here.
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