Crime reduction 

Lighting and landscaping

Please consider the business crime prevention advice below to improve the external security of your business premises.

Security lighting

• Seek specialist advice before buying and installing lighting.
• Good lighting is essential. It helps to create a safe environment and reduces your staff’s fear of crime.
• The type of lighting needed will depend on the level of risk, the geography of the area and the type of surveillance in place. Please contact your supplier for advice.
• Make sure that lights are positioned properly - badly-sited lighting can assist intruders and cause a nuisance to neighbours.
• It is better to have permanent, low-cost lighting rather than higher-cost lighting linked to a movement detector.
• External lighting should be chosen carefully – make sure it works with other security equipment, such as CCTV.
• Check lights regularly to make sure that they work well.

Landscaping

• Keep ground cover below one metre in height. Keep tree canopies no lower than 2.4 metres. Remove screens that criminals could hide behind. This will improve natural surveillance of your premises.
• Make sure that taller shrubs and trees do not act as climbing aids for intruders to gain access to building roofs, upper windows or overhead phones lines.
• Remember that telephone poles make good climbing aids. These should be moved somewhere else or made impossible to climb.
• Ditches, earth, rock, and water features can all make good boundaries, depending on the site and risk assessment. They may be useful to prevent ram-raiding and stopping travellers’ vehicles from trespassing, for example.

For more information, read about how to create secure boundaries.

Ram-raiding

• The most effective way to stop ram raiding is to build a strong physical barrier some distance in front of the wall or windows of your building.
• For example, use a row of bollards or heavy planters containing flowers.
• Consider installing rising barriers in front of vulnerable doors.

Maintenance

• It is important to maintain the area around your business premises.
• The area around your business premises can give criminals clues on how effective your external security is.
• Deal with broken windows, litter, vandalism and graffiti immediately.
• Store waste in the proper way before it is collected. This can help to prevent arson.
• Take care when disposing of packaging such as computer boxes. A computer box on display suggests to a criminal that there are expensive new items in your building.
• Shackle bins away from the main building. This prevents them being moved and used as a climbing aid or as places to start fires (arson).