Sonitrol comes of age at Oldham Council

Sonitrol® audio intrusion detector systems protect over 160 school, college and civic buildings

Oldham Council's education department showed enormous foresight twenty one years ago when it pioneered the introduction of its first Sonitrol® installation. The success was instant, saving over £1 million in the first year on reduced vandalism, theft and arson, and it has consistently delivered an annual arrest average of over 50 offenders.

Today, over 160 school, college and civic buildings across Oldham are being protected by Sonitrol® audio intrusion detector systems in what has become one of the most sophisticated security initiatives of any local authority in the country.

In the very latest contract with Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Stanley Security Solutions, which acquired Sonitrol in 2008, has installed a new system at Royton Hall Primary School and secured a new maintenance agreement to carry out regular servicing and testing of all 160 systems for the next two years.

Already this summer the sophisticated audio detection has repeatedly proved its worth across the borough with over 40 alarm activations at local Oldham schools during the summer holidays alone. Of these incidents, intruders only managed to get inside the schools on three occasions and all were immediately detected and arrested thanks to the Sonitrol system.

The audio intruder detector picks up the sound of any intruders or irregular noises and immediately triggers an alarm and records CCTV footage within the council's Alarm Receiving Centre, a central borough command and control room manned by monitoring professionals. They can then immediately determine whether there is a genuine intruder incident in progress or if a false alarm has occurred.

The council's First Response Team can then react with its own mobile response patrols or initiate police back-up if an incident looks or sounds sufficiently serious.

"Our message to burglars and intruders is simple: If you break in, we will immediately know what you are up to and exactly where you are"

Janice Leech is Infrastructure Manager at the council's Alarm Receiving Centre and responsible for coordinating an integrated security programme that includes alarm monitoring, CCTV public surveillance and an out of hours communication centre. She said: "Back in the late eighties this council was well ahead of its time in recognising the increased vulnerability of schools and colleges in terms of crime. Twenty one years later we are delighted that Stanley Security Solutions is now able to represent the Sonitrol product in the UK and, through this latest service contract, ensure that our borough-wide systems are maintained to the highest security specification."

Oldham Councillor Mark Alcock, Cabinet Minister for Environment and Infrastructure had the final word on the secure monitored intruder system: "Schools are vital to the future prosperity of this borough and we take their security extremely seriously. Our message to burglars and intruders is simple, we are watching Oldham's civic buildings 24/7 and, if you break in, we will immediately know what you are up to and exactly where you are."