Secured by Design will be at the FIT Show
Secured by Design (SBD), the national police crime prevention initiative, will be among more than 300 exhibitors at the prestigious FIT Show this week.
Our team will include Chief Operating Officer Jon Cole, Senior Technical Officer Michael Brooke, Senior Development Officer Kenny McHugh, and Development Officers Emma Snow and Alfie Hosker.
Kenny said: “It’s important we are there, as we have been for many years, but particularly so in our 30th anniversary year, to support the industry and our member companies, and to explain how we are working in partnership with the industry and manufacturers to deter and reduce crime to build safer and stronger communities.”
As most of the many regular exhibitors amongst the 300 attending will know, SBD has been involved in pioneering work with national and local government and a wide range of organisations to improve the physical security of buildings, particularly in the residential marketplace, over the last 30 years.
This work has involved tackling the wide variations in the quality of products installed during the housing boom of the 1960s, 70s and 80s when security was barely considered and windows could be lifted out almost as easily as they were installed.
To combat the rise in burglary that resulted, SBD set about looking at the quality of the products being sold against those originally tested. With SBD driving the market, test houses were created and certification bodies set up to ensure quality assurance over time.
Today, door and window manufacturers must be certified by a United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) certification body before becoming an SBD member company and being considered for SBD’s coveted Police Preferred Specification.
Currently more than 800 companies have products which have achieved SBD accreditation. SBD is the only way for companies to obtain police accreditation for security-related products in the UK.