Plan for a Successful Shutdown this Christmas

With Christmas only a few weeks away, it’s time for putting up the lights, decorating the tree and some serious shopping. But if you manage a construction site, it’s also time to start planning your Christmas shutdown.

The Christmas break tends to be the time when construction sites around the UK close down for the longest period. And quite right too, the festive break is always welcomed and well deserved for anyone who has worked outside during the colder, wetter months. However, fail to plan for a secure shutdown and your Christmas festivities could be rudely interrupted.

Every site around the country is different. So firstly you will need to think about the particular vulnerabilities and potential risks to your site. Is your site in a city location? Or is it tucked away in the countryside? Is it in a highly populated area or a secluded location?

Plan for a Peaceful Christmas

If you plan your construction site shutdown properly, you will have more chance of having a catastrophe-free Christmas. After all, who wants to be mid mince pie and suddenly having to dash out to deal with a disaster?

Make your Site Secure

Leave your site locked and as secure as possible. It is impossible to make it completely impenetrable — if someone is intent on breaking in or causing damage, they probably will — but you can make break-ins less likely to happen. Make access hard for your unwanted guests and with a bit of luck they will lose interest.

Remove Valuable Assets

Obviously it isn’t possible to remove everything of value from your site, but it may be a good idea to remove equipment and items of especially high value if possible. And if removing them is impractical and they do need to stay, then keep them out of sight, tucked away and under lock and key.

Plan for Bad Weather

The weather in the UK is unpredictable at the best of times, but the weather during December can be particularly dicey. From gale force winds to freezing temperatures, mother nature can cause serious problems if not prepared for. Make sure stacked items are secure, equipment that could easily be blown over is moved to a sheltered spot and vulnerable equipment is safely out of harm’s way.

Make Sure Someone is Contactable

Unfortunately issues sometimes still arise, even with precision planning. And if something should happen, someone will have to deal with it. As much as you would probably like to forget about all things work-related until the 2nd January, you or a delegated employee will be need to be contactable in the event of theft, trespass or even arson.

Protect your Plant

While it may be possible to remove some valuable equipment from your site over the shutdown, you will need to leave plant machinery. Plant is one of the highest value assets of any construction site, so you would be wise to make sure it’s protected.

A great way to ensure any heavy-duty plant — and company vans — left on site over the Christmas break are protected, is to fit them with tracking systems. If your construction site is breached during your shutdown and a thief is able to take control of one of your vehicles or plant machinery, the stolen assets can be tracked. By tracking machinery, the recovery statistics drastically increase. In addition to tracking, stolen equipment can also be remotely immobilized. This makes it much harder for the thieves to sell the stolen vehicle and extends the window for the police to safely return it.

The iTrack Ultimate from Phantom even comes with Ghost Immobiliser — the next generation of security, protecting your vehicle from key cloning, hacking and key theft. So the only way a thief could take a Ghost protected vehicle is by physically towing it away. And even then, they would never be able to drive it. No pin, no start.

Plan for a successful shutdown and enjoy your festive break. Call Phantom today on 0161 476 4050 to protect your assets. Don’t let thieves steal your Christmas.