APRIL 2020 | 15
News
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
GGF LAUNCHES
THINK GLASS
CAMPAIGN
Helping Consumers Understand
the Lifestyle Benefits of Glass
SBD in action
The DOCOs in Northern Ire-
land have around 150 develop-
ments on-going at any particular
time at various stages from con-
cept to completion. Many will be
in Belfast or Northern Ireland’s
second city Londonderry/Derry
whilst others are in other cities
and towns and rural areas.
Developments of social hous-
ing could involve a short row of
houses or a small estate of mixed
houses and apartments creat-
ing two or three new streets on
infill sites between established
homes or where old homes have
been demolished to make way
for new ones. Neatly presented
with smart, secure front doors
and windows, mostly with liv-
ing rooms that overlook front
boundary railings and residents’
parked vehicles beyond, they
additionally benefit from being
well illuminated by lights to the
front and rear of their property
and modern street lighting. Some
homes built on sites in potential
policing problem areas may have
especially heavy and thick glass
fronted windows.
At the other end of the social
housing scale are large phased
developments, built over sever-
al years on greenfield sites for
a number of different housing
associations – creating brand new
and emerging communities. Some
developments run into thousands
of homes.
Other DOCO work also in-
volves building in security to
hospitals and schools as well as
places of work and relaxation
like sports and leisure centres.
Some are completely new de-
velopments, others involve new
buildings on existing sites and
refurbishing existing buildings.
Some of the DOCOs largest
and longest-running projects
have been in the health sector
amounting to many hundreds
of millions of pounds of build-
ing development. Key features
here include secured entrances,
access controls to buildings and
lock-down shutters on doors and
windows.
Other projects have included
improving street security, such
as the strategic use of bollards,
improving park security by
lowering perimeter fencing to
provide greater visibility and a
less fortified approach to a public
space, and enhancing the security
of listed buildings with the use of
internal panels of glass to achieve
the added security provided by
double-glazing.
Pete Connolly, who is a training
consultant with SBD, said: “Many
of these developments show SBD
at its best. It’s about delivering
thoughtful, safe designed homes
for people to live in for genera-
tions to come. However, they are
unlikely to ever be aware that
the police had been involved in
the development of their homes
and in street design to make their
local community safer.”
Kenny McHugh, who was
the Lead Designing Out Crime
Officer for PSNI from 2005 –
2016 before he left to work for
SBD where he is Membership
Lead, said: “It is great to see SBD
continuing to grow and go from
strength to strength.
“Over the last 15 years, I have
been privileged to visit every
corner of Northern Ireland to
see at first hand how applying
SBD crime prevention principles
builds safer communities. It’s fan-
tastic work and makes a differ-
ence to so many people’s lives.
“Not only does SBD help create
secure surroundings, but also we
help achieve secure homes and
buildings with robust products
like doors and windows that
meet SBD’s Police Preferred Spec-
ification. Many of our local door
and window manufacturers have
become SBD member companies
and have invested heavily in
product testing and certification
to ensure they meet our security
standards.”
Kenny, whose strategic role
now sees him working with PSNI,
Police Scotland and An Garda
Síochána, recalled that he once
asked a clerk of works of a local
housing association what his
thoughts were about SBD. “He
replied that whilst being sceptical
to begin with, residents quickly
started to say how happy they
were with their new homes and
how safe they felt. This led to a
decline in residents requesting
transfers to other areas.
“There were other benefits for
housing associations too with
reduced repair and maintenance
costs because windows and doors
had been tested and certified to
ensure they were quality prod-
ucts. It’s a win, win for us all, he
told me, with residents safer in
their homes and in the communi-
ties that they live in – a testament
to what working in partnership
with SBD can achieve.”
Chris Sloan, of PSNI, said:
“As a policing service we are
committed to preventing crime
and reducing harm through
responsive, visible, accessible
and victim-focused policing. By
working in partnership with our
stakeholders we can contribute to
the development of safer spaces
within Northern Ireland.
“Our continued investment in
dedicated specialist Designing
Out Crime Officers reinforces the
PSNI commitment to designing
out crime at a local and strategic
level. “The increases in architec-
tural design requests including
SBD on major, specialist and local
developments are a clear indica-
tor of the success and hard work
of the prevention team.”
www.securedbydesign.com
The Glass and Glazing Fed-
eration (GGF) has launched a
new consumer PR campaign
called “Think Glass” to increase
awareness of the lifestyle benefits
of glass to homeowners.
The online platform for the
new campaign is the GGF’s
award winning consumer advice
website MyGlazing.com which
attracts over 200k unique visitors
per year.
James Lee, GGF Director of
External Affairs commented on
the new campaign, “This is a very
exciting and unique campaign that
has been in our planning for over
six months. The GGF and Refresh
PR will be using the full range
of information within the GGF
technical library. We will also be
working closely with glass experts
in the manufacturing sector to
communicate to millions of home-
owners how glass and its technol-
ogy can improve their lifestyles.”
The GGF’s broad aims of the
campaign are:
• To integrate and repurpose
the GGF’s broad messages
and technical information
on fire safety, safety and
energy efficiency to educate
and inform consumers on
the different types of glass
and how they benefit their
everyday lifestyles.
• To underline the GGF and
its Members as the leading
authorities in glass.
• To create and increase great-
er awareness of the GGF
and its Members to con-
sumers via MyGlazing.com,
the GGF’s award winning
website.
• To drive more traffic to
MyGlazing.com and to sub-
sequently reach the GGF’s
consumer facing members
on MyGlazing.com.
www.ggf.org.uk
James Lee, GGF Director of External Affairs