GATE SAFE LOBBIES AGAINST AUTOMATED GATE KITS

Gate Safe is continuing to challenge those in the gate manufacturing industry to play a stronger role in ensuring the safety of automated gates and barriers – including companies selling automated gate kits. The charity has set up a petition to lobby against the sale of such kits to the general public.

Currently, ANYONE can buy a kit to transform a regular manual gate into a potentially dangerous machine. Unsurprisingly, 96% of the Gate Safe installer community believe that such kits should not be readily available direct to consumers.

Gate Safe wrote to both Amazon and eBay in 2019 questioning the validity of this approach, with very disappointing results. Amazon advised they had ‘forwarded this issue to the Product Safety team. Please be assured they’ll investigate this and take appropriate action.’ Needless to say, the charity is still waiting … Gate Safe will be appealing to both organisations to reconsider their responses.

Gate Safe will also be taking up this issue with the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK (ASA) since advertisements for these kits are rife on Google and other search engines.

Richard Jackson, founder of Gate Safe comments, “Consumers will always seek out what they perceive to be a ‘bargain price’. It falls to installers to explain that skilled and professional expertise comes at a cost … but in the long run, ‘getting the job done by a suitably qualifiedinstaller is worth every penny and what price can you put on safety? Those that choose to go the DIY route may find themselves facing higher costs than anticipated, with agate no competent gate installer will agree to ‘fix’. Leaving them with an unsafe installation that is capable ofendangering the very people – and their friends and family – that it was intended to protect. Once again, it is down to those that care about safety in the fencing / automated industry to initiate change.”