Toby Roberts-Davies, Product Innovation Manager at First Fence, gives SJUK an exclusive look at the company’s new approach in the UK fencing market.

First Fence is a national manufacturer of fencing with depots in seven locations and over ninety delivery vehicles.  

With a specialist focus on mesh, palisade, agricultural, railings, acoustic and gates, First Fence has successfully become a household name in fencing across all geographic areas of the UK.  

The fencing industry is vast. Its primary responsibilities vary from marking boundaries and keeping livestock safe all the way to protecting sites of critical infrastructure and essential transport infrastructure.  

If there’s a fencing problem to overcome, there’s most likely a material, style and installation method already available for it.

As a result, the UK fencing industry is worth over £1.105 billion a year to the UK economy, with over 60,000 people employed directly in the manufacturing and installation sectors.  

The supply of fencing to these industries has been essential for the survival and growth of fencing manufacturers.

We’ve typically managed to identify our customers into three decision-making demographics as follows:   

• Demographic one: the specification-driven consumer, where technical details are required to ensure the solution works for the problem 

• Demographic two: the price-driven consumer, who needs to ensure the initial investment and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) are in line with their budgetary requirements 

• Demographic three: the time-sensitive consumer, where lead time is critical for projects where a long lead time is not a luxury 

We’ve successfully created a name for ourselves in each of these sectors, especially the time sensitive consumer. 

To address this sector, First Fence has always ensured that all depots keep a minimum of £14m of stock on the ground at all times, ensuring all fencing requirements are catered for on a same day or next day basis, if required.  

However, there has been a shift in demographics in the last five years, that has encouraged First Fence to adapt its business model and product offering: the high security fencing specifier.  

It first started by seeing more project requirements coming through with LPS 1175 issue 7, which then evolved into issue 8. 

When we tried to really understand the requirements of the high security specifier, it became clear that they trusted our in-depth knowledge and advice as a manufacturer but required the reassurance of the LPS 1175 behind the products. 

Upon speaking to more ‘high security specifiers’ it became apparent that the two biggest burdens of this demographic involved lead time on quotations and general lead times for material supply.  

Having successfully worked out the formula to be the quickest in the market for pricing and deliveries, it was onto the next chapter, developing a range of products for the high security specification market.  

Understanding the material types used in high security was essential, with mesh and palisade leading the way for their high security features including anti climb (358 mesh), jagged spikes (palisade) and general strength and robustness against distortion and deflection. 

This made way for the development of ProFence 868 and 358 (the SR1 A1 mesh range) and PaliFence (the SR1 A1 Palisade range).  

Both ranges started life as a standard off-the-shelf fence system, in which multiple preliminary attack tests were carried out using the appropriate tools from tool kit A, ensuring both systems withstood a magnitude of attacks preventing an aperture of 225mm x 400mm being created, which according to the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the LPS 1175 represents the torso of a body.  

In the early stages of product development for SR1 (A1), we knew the tensile strength of the mesh would sufficiently pass the force entry tests, so instead we focused most of our attention on the fixing methods and steel work. 

Having tested over 30 different fixing methods to understand the best performance method when subject to vibration, blunt force and manipulation from a range of tools, the final specification was chosen, far exceeding the requirements of the LPS 1175.  

The next time your high security fencing project requires quick pricing and lead times, we’d love to hear from you.   

This article was originally published in the September Edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.