HOPING FOR A SAFER 2024

With interest rates stabilising, there is less financial uncertainty. Whilst inflation is still an issue, it is likely to drop to 2.5% by the second half of 2024, and consequentially interest rates are also likely to fall ending at 4.5% by the second half of 2024 (source:RSM Audit, Tax and Consulting Services November 2023). These factors coupled with the potential uplift in the residential house building market which has suffered so much in recent years, could represent a positive period of opportunity for installers.

But while the business landscape looks less hazardous, I wish the same sentiment applied to the safety of automated gates. Although there have been significant improvements since the inception of Gate Safe in 2010, unfortunately we are still not at the point where we can speak with confidence that electric gate safety is now a priority for either gate owners or all installers.

On a positive note, Gate Safe has now trained in excess of 3,000 people from 1,269 organisations and all of these should now realise what constitutes a safe gate and are committed to upholding the best practice as shared via the IOSH approved training. This also means that the people who have grasped the message are now hopefully spreading the word regarding the importance of a safe installation – this is alongside Gate Safe’s ongoing campaigning – ultimately resulting in more people being assured of receiving a safe gate installation.

There is another consequence for those 1,269 organisations who are now ensuring that they are upholding the highest standard of safety. These companies are almost certainly increasing their sales per customer and by definition, therefore profit per customer, which surely sounds like a win-win situation? They also can sleep well in their bed at night knowing that they have done the best job in terms of delivering a safe installation for their customers. Arguably, that is more valuable than the profit alone.

Of course, there are still people out there doing a shoddy job but they are becoming a minority and the more people that spread the safety message the more that minority will be marginalised. If you look at how far the automated gate industry has come in the last 14 years an outsider would be astonished.

We regularly see evidence of dangerous gates in the field, both through our own survey activity, feedback from the Gate Safe installer community but also via social media groups such as the Automated Gate Engineers. Sadly, we are still in a situation where another potentially fatal accident is just waiting to happen.

There is plenty of information and knowledge available to those installing or maintaining these systems, so why the lack of commitment to the safety procedures required to ensure a safe – and legally compliant – installation?

I’d like to think that there are very few professionals who would willingly sacrifice safety for the sake of a sale or enhanced profit. So how do we explain the continued mistakes and disregard for best practice?

One significant contributing factor could be the amount of misinformation still in circulation. A clear example of this relates to the use of force testing as a means of protection, a viewpoint that Gate Safe has consistently contested as downright dangerous – and one which has been brought to the attention of the HSE and is being discussed with OPSS (Office for Product Safety & Standards).

In addition, the continued apathy from gate manufacturers and their failure to play a proactive role in gate safety is at best, incredibly unhelpful. Gate Safe has lobbied on a number of occasions, for those responsible for the supply of gates to take heed of the required action to prevent a single point failure resulting from the reliance on just two hinges on a gate. Instead of taking steps to demonstrate a move towards fitting three hinges, all we can report to date – with one exception – is a clear dismissal of the guidance. And while we appreciate changes to the manufacturing process takes time, our plea for a reference to the need for a tether for a swing gate which is reliant on two hinges still falls on deaf ears.