Retail Therapy

The Bentalls Centre is the main shopping centre within the town of Kingston upon Thames and consists of a large indoor complex which houses a large Bentalls store as well as numerous other well know retail outlets - a shoppers’ paradise!

Due to expansion, Carillion PLC was awarded the contract to build an additional multi-storey car park adjacent to an existing car park. As part of this project, enhanced additional CCTV was required and Kent & Sussex Security (KSS) were asked to work on the design and installation of this.

An existing system was already in place within the centre but was deemed not readily capable of providing either the capacity or comprehensive control requirements. The decision was made for a new, extended system to be installed, under contact with Carillion, to meet these new demands. The new system needed to control a total of approximately 150 PTZ and static cameras spread across the centre itself and three multi-story car parks located remotely from the centre.

The control requirements dictated full control of the entire system from the main centre security as well as control of all parking areas from a separate car park security office. Finally local control of the most remote car park needed to be provided within the local security office within that car park itself. The system also required the facility to be accessed by the main Kingston town centre system as well as the Police authorities.

Due to the complex control and transmission requirements, a network based Vicon Net system was proposed consisting of a number of Vicon Pro and Vicon Elite Kollector type Digital Video Recorders providing two virtual matrices within the main control room and car park control rooms via images streamed across the network. The flexibility and comprehensive controllability of this system allowed all performance criteria to be met. This system was installed in conjunction with the progress of building works and its phased installation enabled the changeover from the old system to the new without any loss to security whatsoever.

This has resulted in the system now functioning reliably and is meeting all of the design requirements. Comments John Jameson from KSS “This system ensures that shoppers are provided with a safe environment and that any problems can be quickly and easily identified and dealt with.”