New security system revolutionises protection of church buildings

Stealing lead from church roofs has become a lucrative operation over the past decade, and in recent years has seen more and more churches fall victim.

St Michael’s and All Angels Church has been at the heart of Church Broughton in Derbyshire for over 900 years, so when the Grade 1 Listed church was attacked by thieves last year they sought a professional company to install a system to prevent this from reoccurring. The changes to their insurance policy meant they now could achieve a greatly enhanced claim cover from their Insurers.

Sheffield-based Connect IP worked with the wardens and the vicar at St Michael’s and All Angels Church, and with members of the church’s insurance company's Group’s Risk Management team to achieve this requirement with a new type of roof protection solution - HD IPCCTV Video Analytics.

This is the first time the enhanced insurance cover has been granted to a church with a system of this kind, which will revolutionise the way churches protect their buildings.

The system has provided the church with HD images of the entire roof through multiple cameras at all times, which is teamed with state of the art detection through the cameras’ field of view. The entire system is backed up for power failure and is connected to an Alarm Receiving Centre for dealing with genuine activations. The church has the ability to remotely connect at any time, from anywhere in the world and view these cameras.

Church warden Julian Shirley said: "Last summer our church and its neighbours were plagued by roof alarm activations. These were caused by a combination of alarm system malfunctions and real activations by people with designs on the lead roof. Following an in depth procurement process, the Connect-IP system was selected as it met all our requirements and many we had not even thought about.

"The installation team were very sensitive to the location and the system was installed with quiet efficiency. With this state of the art system, I am confident that an attack on the roof will result in the real-time visual verification of intruders, a swift voice warning to 'Get Off' and confirmation that the police have been called. No more walking up the pitch black church path at 02:00 not knowing what to expect at the top!"

For further information visit www.connect-ip.co.uk