Security for livery yards
A livery yard is the hardest equestrian site to secure, because almost everyone who arrives has a right to be there and most of the value on site belongs to somebody else.
You are holding other people’s property. Twenty owners, twenty saddles, and an expectation that the yard has taken reasonable care of them. That changes the conversation from protecting your own assets to being able to show a client, and sometimes their insurer, what was in place.
It also means the security has to work around how a yard genuinely operates. Liveries come at six in the morning and nine at night. Nobody is going to sign in. Any system that adds friction to riding a horse will be worked around within a fortnight.
What this kind of site needs.
The tack room holds the concentration of risk
One building, one door, and tens of thousands of pounds of client property inside it. Detection in the room itself, not just a camera looking at the door, plus locking you can control per person. It is also the clearest thing to point at when a livery asks what security you have.
Turnover of keyholders is constant
Liveries arrive and leave through the year. Cutting keys for a yard of twenty every time somebody moves on is why so many yards end up with a code that has not changed in five years and a spare key in an obvious place. Fobs and codes you can cancel individually solve exactly this.
The lorry park is unsupervised parking
Trailers and horseboxes belonging to clients, parked in a field or a corner of the yard, often visible from a road. A camera positioned for the towing vehicle and its plate at the entrance is worth more than one looking at the parked trailers themselves.
Lone working is routine
Somebody is on that yard alone in the dark most mornings and most evenings, often the yard owner. Lighting that responds where people walk, an intercom that reaches the house, and cameras that mean a person is not entirely on their own are staff welfare as much as security.
Disputes need footage more often than thefts do
Honestly, most yards use their cameras for the gate somebody left open, the horse that got out, the delivery that says it arrived and did not, and the collision in the lorry park. Worth specifying for, because it is the daily use.
Questions from yards like yours
Do I have to tell liveries the yard has CCTV?
Yes, and you would want to. Signage at the entrance is both a deterrent and part of using CCTV lawfully. You also need to be able to deal with someone asking for footage of themselves, which is straightforward once retention is set sensibly.
Can liveries see the cameras too?
That is a decision to make deliberately rather than by default. Some yards give owners a view of their own horse’s box and nothing else. Sharing a full system view with clients raises questions about other people’s privacy that are easier to avoid than to resolve later.
Will this help with what my insurer asks for?
It often does, and some insurers specify certificated installation for intruder alarms. Every system here is installed by Secure Systems, which is SSAIB certified. Send us the wording before the survey and we will tell you plainly whether we meet it.
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