21st Century technology now provides security at the site of what was formerly one of the major woollen mills in the Stroud Valley in Gloucestershire. The refurbished old mill buildings at Bond's Mill Estate now offer a wide range of serviced office accommodation and workspace.

As the use of the site expanded, so the tenants' security needs increased and three years ago a basic, analogue CCTV system was installed. Towards the end of 2004, it became apparent that this system was outdated and no longer met the estate's growing requirements. Insufficient coverage and poor image quality, coupled with the inherent problems of a videotape system, prompted the management team to look for alternatives.

After a careful and extensive evaluation process, Bond's Mill Estate Limited chose an event driven, digital surveillance system called VisionIP. The system which is IP-based, is provided by RedHand from Cheltenham . Standard, external infrared video cameras are connected through existing coaxial cable or through new network cable into video servers. These provide colour, JPEG images of excellent quality and each one is time/date stamped. All the network cameras have inbuilt motion detection, so if there is nothing to watch there is no network traffic. An intelligent Viewer module makes it easy to locate and manage the pictures .
		Julie Griffin is seen above, reviewing images from the site cameras .

If required, all the images from various cameras can be locked together chronologically. An incident can then be viewed exactly as it happened, on any networked PC .

Due to tenants' operating requirements, the estate is now open 24/7 and the ability to monitor the site outside of normal working hours has become very important. Julie Griffin, the Lettings & Tenants' Services Co-ordinator says, " As we operate an open site, its vital that we have a good surveillance system. We chose RedHand because it provides high quality images and locating and viewing an incident is quick and simple ."

VisionIP is also web-enabled so that if a camera is activated out of hours, the pictures can be sent to a central monitoring station, via the Internet.

Jerry Spence, RedHand' s Technical Director says, " We are very pleased to be working on such a prestigious project, that highlights the importance of security and the use of innovative products. Bond's Mill Estate Limited has an excellent reputation and working in partnership with such a company is an exciting opportunity for us ."