Bradley Stoke Town Council is considering the deployment of razor-sharp security spikes at its flagship Baileys Court Activity Centre, following reports that youths have been regularly climbing onto a flat section of the centre’s roof. Last week’s barely quorate meeting of the Council’s Finance & Leisure Committee heard Town Clerk, David Chandler, claim that youths had even staged barbecue parties on top of the recently expanded building.
Having dismissed the potential use of anti-climb paint as “ineffective and requiring regular replacement”, Mr Chandler proceeded to recommend deployment of a security system known as Razor-Spike® (photo above left), marketed by its manufacturers as “the most aggressive security spike ever produced.”
The Clerk then produced a sample of Razor-Spike® from a cardboard box and offered Committee members the opportunity to examine it. As the vicious-looking length of galvanised steel was gingerly passed around the table, Councillors were heard to raise concerns about the prospect of a child becoming impaled on the barrier, but the Clerk assured them that the system had Police approval (subject to proper installation and warning signage) and had been recommended by a security expert at South Gloucestershire Council.
The Committee was told that installation of the system would cost £4,500 for protection of the most vulnerable part of the roof or £5,500 for its entire perimeter.
The unnerved Committee members declined to make a decision and referred the matter to Full Council.
