20
Jan
2014
By Calvin at 10:45 GMT, 12 years ago
Our friends in Hertfordshire Constabulary are appealing for witnesses and information and are reminding members of the public to ensure their garages are secure after a number of break-ins in Hitchin, Letchworth and Knebworth.
In Hitchin, between Tuesday, January 14 and Wednesday, January 15 a total of four garages were broken into on Wilshere Crescent, Valley Road and St Katherine Close – where a television was stolen. In Knebworth on Wednesday, January 15, three garages were broken into in Cherry Close.
In Letchworth, between Thursday, January 16 and Friday, January 17, a total of six garages were broken into on Ivel Court, Fleetwood, Goldon and Swanstead.
Although not many items were stolen from the garages, costly damage was caused.
North Herts Neighbourhood Inspector Neil Morehen, said: “We are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of who is responsible for these recent garage break-ins.
“I am appealing to anyone who was in or around the locations of these incidents over the past couple of days and has seen anyone acting suspiciously around garages to get in contact as soon as possible.
“I’d also be interested to hear from anyone who has any information about these crimes or who suspects someone is responsible.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact police via the non-emergency number 101. Alternatively contact Crimestoppers, the independent charity, anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Inspector Morehen added: “Garages are often targeted by thieves as they tend to be less secure than homes and hold expensive gardening and power tools or bikes and exercise equipment.”
TCPW Comment: Inspector Morehen finishes by suggesting that the reader follows a list of crime prevention recommendations, which you can read at the link below, but for some extra detail please visit this link on The Crime Prevention Website: which contains lots of links to other pages for even more information; which you’ll need if you want to achieve a good level of security.
But just how secure are our garages?
In the February Newsletter (subscribe here) I shall be taking a look at this question and several others relating to vehicle crime and garaging. But in the meantime here’s a taster, which gives us some idea of just where we all are with respect to our garage’s vehicle doors.
In the Home Security Survey application on this site I ask people to describe the type of vehicle door they have on their garages and here are their responses:
- 1.3% Double leaf door, which is not locked
- 12.6% Double leaf door which is locked
- 51.8% Up-and-over door with only the factory fitted lock
- 14.3% Up-and-over door with the factory fitted lock and my own extra locks
- 3.7% Roller shutter door
- 13.8% Powered roller shutter door
- 2.5% Roller shutter door certified to LPS 1175 Security Rating 2
The figures above are from a sample of 1,503 respondents taking the survey who live in a house or bungalow and have a garage.
Apart from the few doors that aren’t locked at all, it’s the ‘up-and-over’ doors that are probably most at risk, especially those that only rely on the factory fitted lock. To make them more secure do follow the link I’ve provided.
I was surprised by the number of powered roller shutter doors in use and whilst I don’t dispute the finding of my survey I think the figure might not be representative of the national picture at present. I’ll look again when we’ve hit 4,000 surveys to see how the figures have changed. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see that of the 300 respondents who have a roller shutter vehicle door, 12.7% claim theirs to be certificated to the advanced security standard of LPS 1175 Security Rating 2. These types of roller shutter doors are designed to resist typical methods of attack by criminals and under normal circumstances are unlikely to be forced open.
Inspector Morehen is absolutely correct when he says “Garages are often targeted by thieves as they tend to be less secure than homes” and so we should all take a long hard look at our current security arrangements, not just the garage door, but any additional pedestrian door and the connecting door from the garage to the house if there is one.
There’s a lot for us to think about here, but you know it makes sense!
Source Hertfordshire Constabulary: http://www.herts.police.uk/hertfordshire_constabulary/latest_news/news_articles/170114_-_1255.aspx
