Two Steps to Take if You Notice That Materials or Machinery Have Been Stolen From Your Building Site
Posted on: 24 August 2018
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If you find that some machinery or materials have been stolen from your building site, here are some steps you should take to handle this situation after you have reported the theft to the police.
Arrange for a locksmith to change the locks immediately
As soon as you are made aware of the theft, you should call a local 24-hour locksmith at a company like Border Locksmiths and arrange for them to come to the site immediately and change the locks on the exterior fencing, as well as the locks on any storage containers you keep on the site. This is obviously a critical step to take if the locks were broken during the robbery (as failing to replace broken locks will make your site far more vulnerable to theft in the future).
However, you should do this even if the locks were not damaged during the robbery. The reason for this is that if the locks are still intact, it is possible that the machinery and materials may have been stolen by someone that works on the site, who decided to use their keys to gain entry at a time when the site was unoccupied.
Changing the locks and only giving out the new keys to those whom you trust implicitly until the police have determined who stole the goods will minimise the risk of any additional items being stolen (if it was an 'inside job').
Take additional security measures
It's also sensible to take additional security measures to prevent this type of incident from happening again at any point during your construction project. This is important, as whilst you may be able to afford to replace a few stolen items, multiple incidents of this kind could affect the financial health of your project and thus impede your ability to complete it on time. For example, placing visible security cameras at the entryway to the site may help to ward off intruders and make it easier for you to identify them if they do try to break in.
Likewise, adding a few layers of anti-climb paint to the barrier that surrounds your site could make it much harder for thieves to clamber over this barrier and gain access to your valuable materials (this type of paint remains permanently slippery, meaning that anyone who tries to climb up a structure covered in it will struggle to maintain a strong grip and will simply slide back down to the ground).