Feedback from SBD's National Training Event

The Secured by Design (SBD) National Training Event, which attracted nearly 200 police staff from around the country, came to a close with an enthusiastic round of applause as the last speaker stepped down from the stage at Whittlebury Hall in Northamptonshire.

The event on 14–15 March provided a wide range of crime prevention updates, including SBD's National Building Approval initiative, academic research about how SBD is reducing crime as well as industry developments, such as the latest building standards.

The Designing Out Crime Officers (DOCOs) or equivalent, who are based in all 43 Police Forces around the UK, heard a series of presentations, all introduced by SBD Chief Executive Officer Guy Ferguson.

These started on the first day with South Yorkshire Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who is the National Police Chiefs' Council's crime prevention lead, talking about the importance of police working closely with architects, developers and local authority planners to design out crime before building commences. The presentations ended on the second day with Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton, who highlighted the importance of problem solving to help reduce demand on police and make the best use of available resources.

The DOCOs also attended a series of workshops on both days presented by SBD and four SBD member companies: NEOS Protect, Entrotec, Frontier Pitts and Exova BM Trada. The Exova presentation included a live demonstration of attempting to break through a standard softwood door where one section had been reinforced with metal sheets.

There were other presentations from:

Mark Hargreaves, National Specification Manger, of SAPA Building Systems Ltd
Dr Aiden Sidebottom, Senior Lecturer, of UCL Department of Security and Crime
Prof Martin Gill, Director, of Perpetuity Research & Consultancy International (PRCI) Ltd
Peter Saddington, Business Development Manager responsible for construction at BSI
John Liversidge, UK Manager, of TecSOS
Steve Clark, Head of Operational Services, British Parking Association
Chris Stevens, Technical Security Advisor, SIDOS, Crossrail Bechtel PDP partner
Guy Collyer, National Training Co-ordinator, of SBD

This year, for the first time, we introduced a separate training session on the second day for senior crime prevention leaders in the Police Service. The presenters to this group included SBD Development Officer Michael Brooke, who highlighted the importance of developers adopting SBD's National Building Approval scheme, which focuses on physical security and encourages the use of products like doors, windows and locks that meet SBD's Police Preferred Specification. This is a higher specification than that required by the Building Regulations.

He was followed by Professor Rachel Armitage, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Secure Societies Institute at the University of Huddersfield, who explained the key built environment factors involved in designing out crime, such as natural surveillance and site layout and who showed how these factors can dramatically reduce opportunities for crimes such as burglaries and anti-social behaviour.

Stuart Kirby, Professor of Policing and Criminal Investigation at the University of Central Lancashire covered the implementation of Problem Oriented Policing at an organisational level.

The event's main sponsor was SAPA, who have long been supporters of SBD. SAPA are major force in the UK fenestration industry and offer a wide range of innovative aluminium building systems and solutions for Curtain Walling and Façades, Doors, Windows and Specialist Applications. They showcased their Building System, Wicona and Technal brands, (www.sapabuildingsystems.co.uk).

SAPA were the main sponsors of this year's event

SBD's Guy Ferguson said: “I am delighted that we had such a strong attendance from across the UK at our training event. It was a lively and energetic two days of presentations and workshops and we have had some excellent feedback from delegates and exhibitors.

"I would like to thank all the police staff who attended, our speakers, exhibitors, and of course, our main sponsor, SAPA for supporting this event.

"There is a lot of good and innovative work going on both within Secured by Design and crime prevention generally and this is extremely encouraging as we strive to work with our many partner organisations to continue to reduce crime in the months and years ahead."

Over the two days, the police officers were able to mingle with the event's exhibitors, all SBD member companies and organisations. Our exhibitors were:

The event was organised by SBD Marketing Manager, Edelweiss Arnold, who received praise from Guy Ferguson and a warm round of applause from delegates. She was ably supported by a team of helpers from SBD and events company SJ Event Consultancy.