Medway! Protect your garages!!!

Medway! Protect your garages!!!

Good evening,

I was helping PCSO Saunders on St Mary’s Island regarding a garage burglary where two high value motorbikes were stolen totalling in £25,000.

Sadly, the vehicles are yet to be recovered although we are investigating.

Obviously, the owner is devastated.

Looking at the garage that the bikes were stolen from it has very little defences and garage doors with no defences are simple to break in to, especially for experienced burglars.

I thought that the best thing to do would be to share my top tips on garage defence to keep your valuables safe.

The best advice can be found at this website.

Secured by Design - Garage Security

I will summarise some of the key points.

If you are needing a new garage door and shopping for a replacement, then look for a secured by design accredited products. Consider a roller door rather than a single sheet.

If you have no intention of replacing your door then install some quality locks on your existing door. You can get side locks and ground anchor locks. Look for ether a “Sold secure” logo in bronze, silver or gold and or a British kite mark or similar accreditation.

Consider alarms. If you already have home alarms, then consider if you can extend them to the garage. You could also consider battery alarms.

If you’re doing a bit of landscaping in the near future, then you might want to consider having gravel on your drive. This is very noisy and really puts burglars off trying properties.

Consider security lighting. A harsh sensor light can be a good deterrent, equally a dawn to dusk light can also put off a potential thief.

CCTV is always a bonus. An obvious camera on the outside of the garage is fantastic for prevention but a smaller camera inside the garage is also good just make sure that footage saves to the cloud as the thief’s have been known to take the whole camera or destroy it.

Secure vehicles or property within the property. Consider using a ground anchor or a lock box for valuables (bolted to the floor)

What you are doing is increasing the risk to the offender of being caught, increasing surveillance and target hardening your own garage.

Burglars may be canvasing estates during the day times looking for worthy targets, if you see anything suspicious in your neighbourhood, please report via online reporting using this link

Report a crime | Kent Police

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Message Sent By
Sean Humphrey
(Kent Police, PCSO, Medway Neighbourhood Task Force)