Director’s View: July 2019

Welcome to the July review of what’s been happening at Lingwood Security Management.

The summer holidays are with us once again and hopefully many of you are disappearing off for a break with family and friends to enjoy the good weather.

From our point of view, summer is a very busy time for the security sector, and our patrols need to be extra vigilant around this time. The longer, lighter evenings will often bring large groups of people together, which can lead to increases in vandalism, petty theft and even railway trespassing, so as always, we like to be one step ahead.

It's great to see our relationship with Network Rail going from strength to strength on the back of the standard of service we have delivered to them. Our respective teams are in regular contact, and as a result, we commenced several new projects with them during July. See below for more details.

Continuous Improvement

Over the past month, following the training courses I completed in June (see last month’s column), I have been busy reviewing and tweaking various aspects of our operations to make the best of the new knowledge acquired.

I believe in driving and encouraging continuous improvement across all areas of the business; to stand still in our industry is effectively to be moving backwards.

New projects commenced in July

• Network Rail Trespass and Vandalism – as highlighted in my introductory notes, the school holidays are a particularly busy and potentially vulnerable time on the railways. Our involvement in this project is to ensure everyone is kept safe and that there are no disruptions to the train lines.
• Network Rail, Levens
• Bilfinger, Doncaster
• Network Rail, Millom
• Network Rail, Lichfield

Kier Highways

We have a new project starting with a new client, Kier Highways, during August. Doc (Thomas Docherty) and I went to visit them last week and are providing them with a mobile patrol officer.

I am delighted to welcome another prestigious client to our portfolio. Kier is the UK’s leading highways service provider, working with a wide range of partners from key central organisations like Highways England through to a wide range of local authorities. They manage 30,000km of the UK’s strategic and local authority road network.

Balfour Beatty, Tarnock

Another project due to commence in August is with Balfour Beatty in Tarnock, which is located in Somerset.

Following site visits by myself and Doc, we have agreed to provide security officers, mobile security officers, CCTV monitoring and barrier installations.

This is a four year project which has required several weeks’ work with a QS team (quantity surveyors) to fully spec everything out. As a result of this, we will be looking to expand both our fleet of vehicles and our team of Security Professionals in the Bristol Area.

PTS Job Opportunities

We are still looking for staff who want to progress in their security career and enhance skills and training (plus receive a higher rate of pay) with this additional ticket. If anyone is interested, please contact Head Office and we can discuss in further detail. We will help you complete the training.

Positive Feedback

This month I have received positive feedback from Matron at Furness General Hospital for one of our Bed Watch Officers. Also, we received 10/10 scores across the board on a recent customer satisfaction survey and site visit at UCLan, Preston.

Wishing you all a productive and prosperous August.

Alan