Designing Out Crime

Designing-out crime

• Crime Pattern Analysis can highlight levels and types of crime you might not be aware of in your proposed location. This gives you an opportunity to address potential issues at an early stage, avoiding amendments and revisions later in the planning process or having to retrofit solutions after problems have occurred
• You should take account of Site-Specific Conditions such as your site’s proximity to the night-time economy (NTE), seasonal effects from tourism, students or events, and physical features such as proximity to railways, rivers, bridges and significant gradients
• We want to see developments with spaces and routes that respect privacy and safety. Spaces designed to deter crime can enhance a sense of ownership, improve social inclusivity and include opportunities for residents to be active in their everyday life.
• Routes should have an appropriate level of security to avoid offering criminals secluded routes to the rear or side of properties and businesses, recesses or too many potential escape routes. Suitable open, straight, wide routes with plenty of natural surveillance are more likely to be well-used. Alleyways can also be a concern. Anti-social usage can deflect users to less suitable routes and help create desire lines that can affect security and cause nuisance and conflict. Vehicle and motorcycle mitigation must be considered to reduce the opportunity for antisocial vehicle use and help avoid users suffering harassment or fear. Emergency access routes must be wide enough to allow the emergency vehicles and have lockable barriers, not bollards, to avoid providing criminals with escape routes or causing nuisance
• A lack of parking is a frequent cause of conflict, especially when drivers use verges and footpaths. Parking areas need maximum natural surveillance. Residents should have allocated spaces; visitor spaces should be clearly marked, with enforceable regulations to avoid becoming additional parking for nearby dwellings. Applying SBD principles, we prefer not to see rear parking courtyards; car barns, pavilion and undercroft parking need careful planning.
• Maximum natural surveillance encourages reporting of problems; avoid landscaping, street furniture or poor lighting that may obstruct people’s view. Planting should be designed to enhance security and aid surveillance: specify tall, slim trees, not low-crowned species; shrubs should be no more than 1m high within the development. Select prickly plants to reinforce boundaries.
• Doors to apartments, integral garages and balconies, and ground-floor or potentially vulnerable windows – from flat roofs, for example – should meet PAS 24:2016 UKAS certified standard, which exceeds Building Regulations Approved Document Q: Security – Dwellings (ADQ).
• You should provide adequate lighting to reduce the fear of crime and areas of concealment; poor lighting encourages homeowners to install their own security lighting that can compromise the overall lighting plan and cause light pollution. We recommend having your plans approved by a member of the Institution of Lighting Professionals (ILP) the Society of Light and Lighting or other body before submission.
• If your plan includes apartments, we recommend ‘A Guide For Selecting Flat Entrance Doorsets 2019’ for dual fire and security. For units of 25 or more, we advise using security compartmentation by access control on lifts, staircases and lobby doorsets. Audio-visual access control, emergency door alarms and communal mail delivery must be to SBD or Sold Secure standard and external mailboxes to TS009. Trade buttons or timed release mechanisms are not acceptable.

SBD is the national police crime prevention initiative that improves the security of buildings and their immediate surroundings to provide safe places to live, work, shop and visit. The housing boom of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, led to homes being built quickly and cheaply,often with little consideration given to security.  Crime increased significantly, particularly burglary. In response, the police service set up SBD in 1989.  SBD works to include proven crime prevention techniques and measures into the layout and landscaping of new developments and to improve the physical security of buildings using products, such as doors, windows, locks and walling systems that meet SBD security requirements.

As a national crime prevention scheme, SBD has achieved significant successes. Working with the Government, SBD has influenced national planning policy to embed crime prevention in the planning process and established police security standards in the building and construction industry.  This has led to more than one million homes being built to SBD crime prevention standards across the UK – that’s 30 per cent of all new homes built – with reductions in crime of up to 87 per cent year-on-year as reported by Police Scotland in 2017. Key to such achievements is the network of SBD trained Designing Out Crime Officers based in police forces and local authorities around the UK, who specialise in designing out crime and who liaise with local authority planners, developers and architects to design out crime at the planning stage in a wide range of building sectors.

A number of local authorities have even gone so far as to introduce SBD standards as a planning requirement. SBD’s most iconic buildings include the 2012 London Olympics site, the 2014 Commonwealth Games Village, Wembley Stadium, the National Stadium of Wales, and the Scottish and Welsh Assembly Buildings. Since it was launched SBD has built up a wealth of experience promoting crime prevention and security through active involvement in local communities – constantly adapting the advice to keep pace with changing patterns of criminal behaviour. SBD National Building Approval (SBD NBA) is a designing out crime initiative for developers and those commissioning new-build developments or major refurbishment schemes. It is a one-size-fits-all security compliance solution.

SBD NBA is open to anyone involved in the commissioning of new developments and refurbishments, whether directly (such as a building developer) or as a specifier (such as a Housing Association or local authority). The process of gaining membership creates a bespoke Technical Schedule for each developer or specifier. This schedule provides a description of how SBD’s requirement for physical security will be met for any building or buildings within current or future developments. In a nutshell, SBD do full due diligence on a member’s supply chain to ensure that their products meet stipulated security criteria and issue an award that not only shows that they take security seriously, but may also discharge their legal requirements for physical security. There are many advantages to this approach, but chief among them is the ability for an SBD NBA member to use the Technical Schedule anywhere in the United Kingdom, safe in the knowledge that it will be accepted by all police forces – it guarantees that a Secured by Design award will be made. Currently membership of SBD NBA costs a nominal administration fee for the full three year contract.