Clacksfirst BID begins estate-wide CCTV upgrade with OneTek

Clacksfirst BID has appointed OneTek to rebuild CCTV across the industrial estates and business parks it represents in Clackmannanshire. Work began on site in late August and covers the BID’s estates at Alloa, Alva, Tillicoultry, Tullibody and Cambus.

The project addresses the priority the BID’s own members identified as their most important. When Clacksfirst last consulted its levy payers on where the BID should focus, extending the Clacksfirst CCTV network ranked first, ahead of every other option put to them. The BID represents approximately 300 businesses.

This article sets out the scope of the work, both for businesses located on the estates and for other BID and estate managers assessing comparable projects.

The existing position

The estates have been covered by CCTV since 2011. As with most installations of that age, the system expanded incrementally: cameras were added as requirements emerged, on discrete systems, each recorded and maintained separately. That was a reasonable approach given the technology available at the time, and the network has served the BID well. What has changed is not the design decision but the technology: capability that previously required separate equipment at separate sites can now be delivered as one managed system.

Consolidation onto a single network

New fibre will connect the cameras across the estates to a single secure recording platform, running on Smart Place, OneTek’s security and estate-management product.

The operational effect is consolidation. Retrieving footage currently requires attending individual sites and collecting recordings locally. On completion of the migration, footage from across the BID area is searchable from one system and can be provided to Police Scotland, where appropriate, in minutes rather than hours. Maintenance responsibility consolidates with it: one network, one platform, and a single supplier accountable for availability.

Analytics on the existing camera estate

A cloud connector extends AI analytics to the estates’ existing cameras from the point at which they join the network. No hardware replacement is required to enable it. Capability available on connection includes:

• detection of anomalous activity in real time
• classification of people and vehicles
• appearance-based search across recorded footage, returning results in seconds

Cameras are replaced on failure rather than as a precondition of the upgrade. Replacement hardware introduces further capability as the network matures, including number plate recognition.

The deployment follows Smart Place installations at West Chester BID and Winsford Industrial Estate. It forms part of a wider OneTek infrastructure investment of over £100,000 in the Clackmannanshire area.

Fibre capacity for businesses on the estates

The fibre being installed for the camera network has capacity well beyond CCTV.

Connectivity remains a recognised constraint for businesses on estates of this type, where available bandwidth frequently falls short of what card payment systems, cloud applications and routine file transfer now require. Where that is the position at Clacksfirst, it is addressable while the infrastructure is being built.

OneTek can deliver fibre to individual business premises on the estates while crews and equipment remain on site. Businesses are offered a connection survey at no cost and without obligation, followed by installation where the survey supports it. Delivery is handled by a local team with direct knowledge of the estates and the cabling being installed.

The economics favour acting during the build. Connecting a single premises once crews and plant have demobilised is a materially larger undertaking for both parties.

Discuss a connection for your premises

Smart Place is OneTek’s platform for community-wide CCTV, number plate recognition (ANPR) and connectivity, deployed for BIDs, estates and local authorities. To discuss a comparable deployment, book a consultation.