Southern Monitoring Services celebrated 20 years of trading with the official opening of new CCTV facilities at its Waterlooville base.
Its CCTV floor is based on the TouchView system from ESSA Security of Cornwall.

The alarms and CCTV floors are configured so that an operator handles all activity from one site.

Managing director Steve Kimber, welcoming guests with general manager Lenise Wareham, said that SMS now has 93 staff handling 40 million signals per year and receiving 3,000 phone calls per day.

Sensible investment
So now was the right time to further invest in the business.

The opening ceremony was performed by NSI chief executive Tom Mullarkey who said SMS was a company with a long involvement with the NSI and which values staff and trains them properly.

"There is a virtuous circle between making profit and providing good service. The investment SMS is making is sensible and timely," said Mr Mullarkey.

"It is forward-looking vision which makes all the difference to this industry."

Praising Mr Kimber's involvement in the security industry, Mr Mullarkey observed: "If you know your business and contribute to it you will reap the rewards."

Among the fully-tailored services SMS provides are:

  • Intruder alarm monitoring
  • Fire alarm monitoring
  • Industrial alarm monitoring
  • Environmental alarm monitoring
  • Community care monitoring
  • CCTV surveillance
  • Global positioning and tracking
  • 24-hour message handling
  • National paging bureau
  • 24-hour service co-ordination
  • Product recall
  • Contingency planning.