A h fl haulier who has ad vehicles stolen torn his yard must fantasise about protecting his premises with an electrified fence.
Page 40
Page 41
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
But having dreamed a satisfying dream of felons slowly frying on the wire, he probably dismisses the idea as impractical. Odds are that he assumes that such fencing is illegal.
As it happens it isn't, says Roger Begy, chief executive of Rutland Electric Fencing (REF).
There are strict regulations governing its installation, however, and the current used must not be powerful enough to cause a fatality The shock it gives will be unpleasant nevertheless. Begy adds; and the miscreant on the receiving end, certainly won't want to repeat the experience.
Although security fencing is an important market for the company—it also makes electrified window bars—the bulk of its products are sold to farmers who want to prevent stock from straying. The shock nudges them away from the fence, but is quite harmless.
Landowners also use such fencing to keep rabbits and deer off their property. "The demand for fencing to deter rabbits and foxes has risen considerably over the past couple of years," says Begy.
REF distributes its energisers, wire, posts, insulators, and related items to dealers countrywide with a fleet of four trucks, all equipped with cellular phones.
"We run a system whereby our drivers leave our premises on a Monday morning and stay out in their territory all week, making deliveries to our customers and acting as salesmen," explains company chairman and founder, Les Dickinson.
Acquisition
The fleet includes a Leyland DAF FA 1900 DNS and a Scania 92M, both four-wheel sleeper-cabbed rigids grossing at 17 tonnes, a Mercedes 814 7.5-tonner, and Rutland's latest acquisition; a six-wheel ERF EC10.30 MR3 sleeper grossing at 26 tonnes, and with a midlift axle.
Supplied by Nottingham ERF distributor TopTrux, the newcomer is fitted with a body built by Saunders of Stapleton in Leicestershire. The interior has been racked out to allow the driver/salesman to operate from the vehicle's rear, and a retractable step ladder has been fitted to provide easier access.
The distinctive livery was executed by Barker Signs of Great Casterton, a few miles away from REF's Oakham, Leicestershire base. Both Saunders and Barker Signs have worked for the firm before.
Begy says that it is too early to produce meaningful operating cost figures for the ERE.
Both the OAF and the Scania cost the company exactly 4.7p a kilometre a mile to fuel in 1994/95. Fuel and servicing costs combined worked out at 22.5p a mile for the Scania, and 17.6p for the OAF The son of a farm labourer. Dickinson spent much of his early life as an agricultural worker too, and as a driver for a plant hire company. Then he decided on a complete change of career, and became a rep for Hoover.
In the sixties he set up electrical retailing shops in Oakham, Uppingham, and Melton Mowbray. An inquiry from a local farmer about electric fencing prompted him to diversify, and he became the UK agent for a New Zealand manufacturer.
He set up Rutland Electric Fencing in 1973, sold the shops, started to produce electric fencing himself, and now claims to take more than 50% of the 13K market. With factory units on Oakham's Fillings Road industrial estate, he employs 40 people, and also has a site at Brechin in Angus, Scotland.
"In our last financial year, we turned over upwards of £4m, and exports accounted for a third of that total," Begy explains. "We're among the top four or five electric fence makers in the world, and the key to our success in Britain is our van sales approach.
"Each dealer knows that we'll call on him every five weeks. The call pattern is very clearly defined, and we always know whereabouts the driver is, and roughly what time he'll arrive at his next destination.
"Quite often the driver will telephone ahead to the dealer to check what he needs, and whether he requires anything special.
"When the truck arrives, the dealer will either have his order ready or the driver/salesman will go through his stock with him, and assess what he needs.
"He'll unload it from the vehicle, bring the delivery note back to base, and we'll invoice the dealer accordingly." Begy says.
"When the driver makes his final call on a Friday morning, he'll use the dealer's fax machine to let us know what he thinks he'll need the following week, We get it all ready, and load it when the truck gets back in the afternoon."
Each vehicle makes from 40 to 60 calls weekly. REF's drivers are all truck drivers who can sell rather than salesmen who can drive trucks.
"They get paid significantly more than an ordinary truck driver would, and they work in conjunction with a regional manager who will sort out any major problems," says Begy. "They have to be people who can get on well with the dealers, and whom the dealers like. They must also be capable of selling the product" REF opted for the ERF partly because of an attractive front-end price—it buys everything outright and partly because of the service back-up. "Both the driver and I felt it offered the best combination of performance, comfort, and long-term reliability," says Les Dickinson.
The ERF will probably stay in service for five years, and cover around 35,000 miles annually. Its beat is the south and south west of England, including Cornwall, Wales, and the English counties bordering Wales as far north as Chester.
REF went for a 26-tonner because it is increasingly finding that smaller rigids just can't carry enough. Some of our products— stranded wire and polywire, for example— aren't bulky, but they're very heavy," Begy says.
"The way we work it is that delivery is free if the dealer takes the items from the truck there and then. If he places an order with us between visits, though, it is sent out by carrier, and there's a charge unless the order is above a certain size.
But if the van salesman runs out of items that dealers want before the end of his delivery run, then we despatch them free-of-charge; no matter how big the order is. Naturally we want to avoid doing that—hence the move to a bigger truck" The larger the wagon, the more likely it is that access problems will be encountered.
"We've already come across two dealer sites that the ERF can't get into. But people in the agricultural industry are usually pretty helpful, and will find the driver somewhere nearby where he can park," Begy says. They'll also help him tackle any additional unloading problems.
A Scottish haulier trunks supplies up to Brechin on REF's behalf. "He delivers canned raspberries among other products to customers down here, and finds electric fencing a useful backload," Begy comments.
The electric fencing market in Britain grew by 27% in 1995, a growth fuelled in part by the mild weather. That encourages farmers to leave their animals outside for longer than usual—and they can't be allowed to wander, But the early part of this year saw bitter winter weather right across the country, and stock has been kept inside wherever possible. As a consequence demand has risen by a comparatively modest 4 to 5% so far.
So how powerful is electric fencing?
"There are strict safety standards laid down, and 10,000 volts is the maximum that can be put through," Begy says. "The maximum shock you can receive at a 500ohm load—which is what a human would be—is 5.000 volts."
REF's electric security fencing protects electricity substations, builders' merchants, and at least one Mercedes-Benz dealership. It is either attached to existing fencing, and positioned very close to it, or unattached, and at least one metre away.
In other words, the space between the two fences must be such that somebody cannot down slip into the gap, become trapped, and receive repeated shocks. "And electric fencing cannot be used in conjunction with barbed or razor wire in case someone gets snagged on it, and is shocked again and again while trying to get free," Begy says.
There must be large, easy-to-read signs warning all and sundry that the fence is electrified, and REF also fits small neon lights which show that a current is passing through it.
Electric fencing costs about £40 a metre, and pennies a week to run. "It's rather more effective than ending up watching the security video of your truck being driven away, and although a professional thief will get through anything, it will certainly deter the amateur or opportunistic thief," Begy says.
But suppose the thief throws chains against the fence to short it out? If he does that, he will invariably set off a siren or alarm linked to the fencing, Begy replies.
A former deputy managing director of British Sugar, Begy came out of retirement to become chief executive of REF at a time of life when most men would be contemplating nothing more strenuous than a little light gardening and the occasional round of golf.
One suspects that having sampled retirement, he found it a little boring. "There's more to life than lying in bed at night worrying about the poor putt you made that afternoon," he says.
E by Steve Banner