DHF to focus on education sector, announces dates for Gate Safety Week 2017

DHF has announced the dates of this year’s Gate Safety Week as 9^th - 15^th October, 2017. The campaign, a DHF initiative launched in 2014, is an on-going crusade aimed at creating awareness about the installation and maintenance of automated gates. Year-long activity culminates in a week of intense campaigning each October, with the initiative growing steadily over the past three years.

Advanced training programmes

Through its training programme, technical specifications, and collaborative working, the DHF has seen an improvement in the quality of gate installations as well as the knowledge of installers in the UK. However, DHF estimates that there are still up to 70% of automated gate installations that are unsafe, many of which would have been installed before 2010.
 
The objective of the Gate Safety Week campaign is to educate both the public and industry professionals on the dangers of unsafe gates, as well as how to spot a potentially dangerous gate and how to report it. And this year’s primary focus is to shine a spotlight on potentially unsafe gates within the school environment.

Highlighting importance of gate safety

“With automated gates now an increasingly popular choice for school and educational buildings, it is absolutely crucial that the strictest safety measures are upheld to protect our children, whilst in the care of others,” says DHF Chief Executive, Bob Perry. “There is still a lot of work to do to improve gate safety and promoting the Gate Safety Week initiative to the education sector is just the beginning. We want to educate the educators, who will then educate the populace.”

In February, DHF launched a school competition to find one UK school to become the face of the 2017 campaign, helping to highlight the importance of gate safety within the school environment. The competition will require pupils to design a poster on the theme: Safe Gates Save Lives. When the successful school has been chosen, the competition will start at the beginning of the summer term with entries submitted by the beginning of June.

Ensuring safety of children

The winning pupil will receive a prize, with the successful school winning a quantity of art supplies. And the winning poster will be used in the publicity campaign in the run up to Gate Safety Week. It is hoped the poster will help educate the school, parents, and children on safety around automated gates.

With a little over six months to go before the climax of Gate Safety Week, DHF are also seeking the support of key organisations who can, once again, throw some influence behind the initiative. In 2016, messages of support from industry heavyweights such as HSE, NHBC, BSIF, ROSPA and The British Safety Council, added further credence to the crusade, supporting DHF’s on-going drive for best practice and higher standards across the industry.