G4Tec began working with Cambridgeshire County Council in May 1994. This relationship has spanned many projects, with the most recent being the installation of the Symmetry access control solution across a further 19 Council-owned sites, spread across the county St Ives, Huntingdon, Bar Hill, as well as the city of Cambridge itself.
Two of the facilities in Cambridge and one in Huntingdon also required a CCTV system to be included in the solution.
One of the biggest challenges presented by the project was that Cambridgeshire County Council wanted to implement new contactless smart card readers, while retaining the existing magnetic stripe cards for some staff. The complexity of the solution has, at times, made the installation process a challenge for the G4Tec team, but by working in partnership with the staff at Cambridgeshire County Council, these issues have been overcome.
Numerous possibilities
The flexibility of the Symmetry Security Management System has opened up a number of possibilities across the 19 buildings, G4Tec says. For example, Scott House, a four storey building, was intended to have two floors for the local authority’s usage, while the others were let out to third parties.
This required a solution that allowed different parts of the building to be isolated at different times, depending on who was located within each floor. Symmetry has made this a straight forward process.
Evolving needs
“Our needs are always evolving and the G4Tec engineers are good at finding solutions to new problems then suggesting what options are available to use,” said Angela Bucksey, head of business support and facilities management for Cambridgeshire County Council.
In order to get the most out of their security solution, the key staff at Cambridgeshire County Council received a workshop on the system delivered by the G4Tec training team.
Bucksey said: “The re-implementation was much easier than other non-security installations that have taken place and the service side has been great.”
