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Securing London’s largest shopping park

When Gallions Reach Shopping Park needed an upgrade for its dated and failing CCTV system, it turned to installers Pacific Security and Turbo analogue equipment from Hikvision.

Gallions Reach is the largest shopping park in London, set on a 65 acre site with 30 193 m² of retail space. Home to 35 retailers, it is located in the heart of the Borough of Newham, which is the largest investment area in Europe with an estimated £22bn to be spent on homes, offices and other infrastructure in the next 10 years. In 2016 the owners of Gallions Reach began a programme refreshing the park’s landscape, and are now starting the next stage, updating the shop fronts to a more contemporary design.

Each year more than six million shoppers visit Gallions Reach and with increased visitor numbers, security and safety is of paramount importance. As part of the programme of upgrades, centre manager Arnold Catterall recognised that there was a need to address the shopping park’s ageing CCTV system.

“The system we had in place was aged and had numerous incompatible additions,” he says. “We required a system that would serve the owners, retailers and customers in maintaining a safe and secure environment, and with the planned changes to the park, also one that was future proof.

“As the shopping park is 65 acres in size, this called for quality equipment and skilled installation in order to give confidence to the on-site team, the stakeholders, and where necessary, provide evidential quality recordings.”

The Pacific answer

Catterall put the work out to tender, and the winner was security and fire installation specialist Pacific Security Systems. They advised the use of Hikvision Turbo cameras and recorders to meet the centre’s needs.

Pacific’s William Mesher explains: “When we first looked at the existing system, half of it wasn’t functioning, the video quality was quite bad, and there were issues with cameras disconnecting from the system.

Hikvision’s Turbo range is ideal for projects like the Gallions Reach Shopping Park, as the Turbo cameras and recorders allow images to be transmitted over almost any format. IP, analogue, Turbo HD, and third-party AHD cameras are all supported.

“For this project, we wanted to provide the Gallions Reach security team with high resolution 1080p HD images,” Mesher says. “Hikvision’s Turbo products made perfect sense as they could utilise the existing analogue cabling network and still record crystal clear high resolution pictures. At the same time, their IP connectivity allows the cameras to be connected to an Ethernet network.”

41 Hikvision cameras were installed, both externally to cover car parking areas, and internally for shop fronts and office spaces. The cameras include the DS-2AE7230TI- A PTZ model, which utilises HD-TVI transmission technology and up to 30x optical zoom to provide HD 1080p images to the control room. To cover exteriors and car parks, Pacific used DS-2CE56D1T-VPIR vandal-proof dome cameras. These high performance 2 MP cameras provide HD 1080p resolution images and true day/night capabilities, with infrared coverage up to 20 m from the camera.

Three dedicated 16 channel DS-7316HQHI-F4/N Turbo DVRs record the HD images, and the pictures are monitored 24-hours a day by an onsite security team.

“We used a Hikvision DS-6900UDI decoder to provide HD 1080p images to two 42-inch and four 22-inch monitors,” Mesher says. “The operators are equipped with DS-1600KI touch screen network keyboards, which allow them to view and manipulate images easily and intuitively. We’ve found that they are ideal for simplifying the operator’s tasks, and are able to be connected wirelessly if required.”

The full package

The resulting upgraded system does not only provide Gallions Reach with a cost-effective means of obtaining high quality images, monitoring safety and security and providing police with evidential quality video: it also offers a future expansion path, and the peace of mind that comes with a reliable and well-supported surveillance solution.

“Pacific suggested we install new cameras and recorders with HD capability and additional Ethernet access,” Catterall says. “Their costs were excellent, especially as they were able to utilise the existing cabling and the installation was professional. The image quality from the Hikvision Turbo cameras now ensures our visitors are monitored for their safety and security.”

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