Elevating security standards in commercial student accommodation

While starting university is an exciting rite of passage, it can also be a time of vulnerability. Young adults arriving at commercial student accommodation in possession of expensive technology and their first taste of independence are prime targets for theft.

Data shows that a third (36%) of UK students have experienced or know someone who has experienced a break-in at their student housing in the past year, according to research conducted by doorset manufacturer JELD-WEN, which partnered with Building to facilitate a vital discussion.

Last month, a group of industry experts gathered around a table in London’s Chancery House to talk street wisdom, door-locking systems and fire safety, and how the built environment supply chain can deliver assets that promote and provide safety.

Early supply chain engagement  

The first step in creating a safe environment is to define exactly what security means in purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA).

“The focus at the moment is very much on wellbeing – tackling things like loneliness – and security forms part of a broader scope of ideals,” said Richard McGuinness, director at architecture practice TP Bennett. For McGuinness, security is a priority “from the outset”, particularly in the context of building location, which for PBSAs is often in a busy city centre.  

Assessing “local risks” can inform what the scheme’s “layers of security” should entail, from the positioning of the building’s entrance to the implementation of “passive surveillance and internal physical measures”.

“We very much rely on early engagement with the architectural liaison officer,” he added. This is especially the case for more ambitious projects that aim to achieve BREEAM, SQSS and Secure by Design accreditations.  

McGuinness highlighted the challenge of getting clients to actively engage with specialist firms supplying various services. “You’ve got all these separate systems, and they invariably go out during [RIBA] Stage 5 to three or four different subcontractors,” he said.

Ben Penson, technical, innovation and development director at Zoo Hardware, said that despite being at what many consider to be the opposite end of the supply chain, early engagement is just as important.

“I think early engagement is critical, because as a hardware manufacturer we’re asked to provide and propose security solutions,” he said.  

Using fire doors as an example, he warned that failing to specify locking mechanisms in the early stages of planning could lead to “invalidating any certification or fire performance requirements on the door” as the “overall compliance of the products” has been neglected.

I think that early engagement is critical, because as a hardware manufacturer we’re asked to provide and propose security solutions

Ben Penson, Zoo Hardware

Samy Dwek, managing director at access control solutions provider NSP Europe, echoed this sentiment, sharing a case where late decisions on door-locking systems caused complications in installation.  

Similarly, Rob Pace, head of sales and business development at JELD-WEN UK, asked whether manufacturers and architects have “enough front-end engagement” to “create a solution that fits everybody in terms of security”.

He explained that to “be in a position to [provide] the best product” architects must set the standard for suppliers so that during the delivery process they are “selecting a product in its entirety” – rather than manufacturers arriving on site to find that the solution they had presumed to be the best fit does not work.

To remedy supply chain disorganisation, Police Crime Prevention Initiatives’ chief operating officer, Jon Cole, suggested making better use of the RIBA Plan of Work (2020) and, more specifically, the security overlay (2023).

The Plan of Work offers complete guidance on the design and construction processes of a building, while overlays advise specifically on various considerations and can be implemented at each of the Plan of Work stages so decisions can be made at the right time with the appropriate stakeholders.

Cole said: “There’s a lot of people saying security comes in last. This document tells people when it should come in [and includes a lot of work from the] National Protective Security Authority (NPSA).  

“If nobody uses it and the timescales are wrong, perhaps we need to [use it].”

Building for students  

Ensuring security for students is not always as obvious as installing locks and fire doors. As Sam Scott, managing director of PBSA management firm Fresh, pointed out, it can also refer to land selection and user behaviour.

“Often PBSA is used as a trigger for some regeneration, perhaps at the edge of a city centre. So security has to look at thinking about how people get to that building to start with, as most students use public transport.”

He emphasised that a scheme must be “completely connected” to be “ultimately successful”.

McGuinness added that “following the student journey from local transport to the building, and through to their accommodation” can inform the necessary layers of security such as access controlled doors and lobbies and passive surveillance at reception desks.

He described how the main threat to students is not their fellow peers, but rather “tailgaters and unauthorised people” who are looking for the opportunity to snatch a phone or flee on a stolen bike.  

To reduce these risks, McGuinness encourages designers to create a “defensible space” where residents are not necessarily stepping straight out onto a public footpath from their building.

Cycle storage has a “big degree of confirmation bias”, he added, explaining that operators are told that “nobody uses bike stores, but the London Plan said you’ve got to have lots of them”. This creates a problem where facilities are hidden in “the darkest, dingiest part of the building”, making them magnets for theft and limiting their usability.

“I think we can break that cycle and celebrate the sustainable transport benefits by bringing them closer to the main entrance, so you can see into the cycle store from within the building,” said McGuinness.

Often the PBSA is used as a trigger for some regeneration, perhaps at the edge of a city centre. So security has to look at thinking about how people get to that building to start with

Sam Scott, Fresh

Building on this, Scott drew attention to gym facilities, which can attract antisocial behaviour from external people watching gym users at night. He therefore recommended considering buildings in every context during early delivery stages.

Harking back to his own time at university, when he “had many things robbed,” Oliver Bailes, an architect at JTP, suggested that having established “community spaces” as well as “caring management and security people that can look after you during that time” would help support young people with limited street wisdom.

Bailes recalled working on a project in Wembley where local engagement helped to identify blind spots in planning. The team had failed to consider that match day would have major safety implications, until a local pointed out that the area was a hotspot for antisocial behaviour.

He said: “It’s quite often that we find that the communities that we’re developing in are not receptive to the idea of a new student community coming in.  

“As soon as you work to break down or make connections with the community to improve that relationship, then you’re already not creating a hostile environment.”  

James Crosse, Sisk’s regional design manager for UK South, suggested that operators could offer self-defence classes and resources to help residents understand tailgating, as well as encourage wider use of reporting apps, which some PBSA providers have set up.

For Cole, fireman’s drop keys are a major issue because they can be easily bought online to gain access to a building. Instead, access control boxes that facilitate compartmentation means that tailgaters can only access one place, which has “reduced antisocial behaviour by something like 80%”.

“Compartmentation really works, where secure locking on each floor doesn’t,” he said, explaining that residents should have access to other floors to visit their friends.

Meanwhile, creating “smaller identified communities” within compartments also stamps out trespassing because it makes faces “recognisable” McGuinness pointed out.

Fire safety and product certification 

Access control boxes are also used by fire services to release all the building’s access control compartments – a strategy that has been approved by the National Fire Chiefs Council.

However, Dwek recognised that new regulations within the Building Safety Act can cause tension between fire safety officers, main contractors and clients, recounting how he was once instructed to fit doors that were incompatible with fire safety advice.

On this point, Glyn Hauser, innovation and engineering manager at JELD-WEN UK, found it “concerning” that the combination of locks and doors chosen in Dwek’s anecdote was not certified.

“Third-party certification rules my world,” he said, acknowledging that “fire safety [legislation] definitely puts a lot of pressure on the whole industry to be compliant” but that “it’s the right thing to do”.

Third-party certification rules my world

Glyn Hauser, Jeld-Wen Europe

Penson argued that “there needs to be a certified door solution”, rather than a “jumble of independently claimed fire-rated or security bits of hardware that you put together and hope is going to perform”.

Manufacturers self-certifying fire doors can lead to ineffective products, with Cole citing firms that completed smoke control tests with a “taped-up thresh[old]”, deeming the process “an utter nonsense”.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy, which claimed 72 lives, has forever changed the industry. At the time, Crosse found himself working on a “huge residential project” that called for amendments in light of the sector’s failures.

“One of the things we were insistent on was to get doors tested with ironmongery, including everything on it, in a pocket fire test for a desktop study,” he said.

“We’ve done that across the board for all our jobs post-Grenfell, so we’ve got full satisfaction that the entrance door has been tested with the ironmongery both corridor side and occupancy side.”

Penson also highlighted the principle of the golden thread that has been enshrined in law with the introduction of the Building Safety Act 2022. Following the Grenfell Tower catastrophe, the golden thread standard was created to systematise the sharing of information throughout all stages of higher-risk building (HRB) delivery. Penson said this would be integral to PBSA development and help guarantee safety moving forward.

Hauser said that it would cost around £10,000 to “properly” test a bedroom door, not to mention the weeks of planning it takes to get the test and wait for a report before applying for certification. He estimated that the time between planning a test and getting evidence back can be between six and 18 months.

However, in terms of cost versus value, Hauser maintained that a “fully certificated flat entrance doorset” is the optimal way to ensure fire safety.

He pointed out that there is a positive correlation between increasing security and revenue because parents want to send their children to a safe PBSA as opposed to a building where you “lose your laptop every five minutes”.

Future-proofing PBSAs

What is unquestionable, in our increasingly tech-savvy world, is that there is continual emergence of new ways to undermine security. Within this context, how can the sector deliver safe PBSAs now and into the future?

“I think this is where trade associations come in,” said Penson. They can “drive development of best practice for technical specifications of electronic products” by encouraging businesses “to take a responsible approach” where regulated standards are lacking.

Cole indicated that the industry offers certain guidance, including EN Etsi standards, which encompass cyber-security and IoT (internet of things), as well as expected compliance with the Product Security and Telecommunications Act.

However, for Penson, passing a test does not ensure security, which requires, rather, “an ongoing assessment of our capability to maintain security as operating systems and threats change”.

Similarly, Scott encouraged people to revisit their completed schemes regularly as part of a “learned lessons process” to make recommendations and upgrades.

We’ve got to keep on top of evolving ways of living

Richard McGuinness, TP Bennett

“We’ve got to keep on top of evolving ways of living,” added McGuinness, referring to the parcel and food delivery services popular among PBSA residents.

He also described how students sit on their laptops in laundry rooms as they feel they must monitor their washing to avoid interference, where small changes such as making the laundry room visible from an adjacent social space would improve security.

Pace emphasised that feedback can fill in the gaps left by “limited [security] guidelines”, as real-life experiences help to inform a scheme’s community safety strategies, where antisocial behaviour protocol is otherwise hazy.

As the session drew to a close, the attendees widely agreed that enhancing PBSA standards starts and ends with meaningful collaboration, not solely within a supply chain but with the wider community too, including local authorities and police forces.

There was a consensus around the table that early engagement across the supply chain and with the community, with detailed focus of design and specification, could help address a lot of the challenges that purpose-built student accommodation faces from a safety perspective.