Northwatch Group
A mountain valley at night between snowy slopes, a low light over the far ridge.
Planning

From the walk-round to a working system.

How a premises assessment runs: the survey, the model of your site, where cameras and lights go and why, the fixes tested before anything is bought, and installation by people we vet and manage.

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01The walk-round

A premises assessment starts on foot, from the outside in, the way someone who should not be there would see it. It is done by day and, where it matters, again after dark.

Site modelRendered example site
A modelled business court at night from the east: lit offices, a car park under lamp columns, railings, trees and the houses across the road.
The site as the walk-round finds it, modelled: what is lit, what is dark, and where the boundary gives. A rendered example site.
  1. Before the visit. A written scope and written authorisation. Plans if you have them, the incident history, who holds keys and codes, and how the building is opened and locked.
  2. The boundary, from outside. Every approach: the road, the lane, the car park, the back way in. Fences, gates, hedges and the gaps in them. What can be seen from the road, and what cannot.
  3. Every way in. Doors, locks, windows, roller doors and the comms cupboard. Who is let in, how visitors are handled, and what a visitor at an empty desk can reach.
  4. Lighting and cameras, after dark. Where the light falls and where it stops. What each camera actually covers at night, not what its box says. Alarms, sensors and who answers them.
  5. People and routines. Lone workers, opening and closing, deliveries, keys that were never collected back. The habits that hold and the ones that do not.
  6. The written record. Photographs, measurements and notes go into the site model and the report: every finding ranked, with its evidence, and a fix list in order.

02The model

Your site is built in three dimensions from survey-grade terrain, mapped footprints and what the walk-round found: buildings, boundaries, gates, lamps and cameras, at the time of day that matters. It is built with Ridgeline, Northwatch's own site-modelling software, and it is the picture everything else is drawn on.

The model is yours to look at with us. Findings are marked on it and written up, so what to fix first is clear to everyone involved: you, your staff, your insurer and whoever does the work.

Site modelRendered example site
The business court modelled at dusk: the car park lamps on, every window lit, railings around the site, the surrounding ground drawn as a blue mesh.
A rendered example site at dusk. No client's premises appear in public.

03Where cameras and lights go, and why

A camera covers a wedge, not a building. A light has a pool, with an edge. Drawn on the plan, each one shows what it reaches and what it misses, and the plan becomes a specification an installer can quote against: positions, heights, aims, lenses and ranges, with nothing left to guess.

Planning diagramRendered example site
A planning diagram of the business court from above: cream buildings on chart paper, numbered cameras with amber fields of view, amber lamp pools, railings and gates drawn in ink.
The camera and lighting plan of a rendered example site: five cameras, their fields of view, eight lights and their pools.
Planning diagramRendered example site
The same planning diagram in an isometric view, the buildings as card volumes and the camera wedges on the ground.
The same plan from above the south-west corner.

04Tested before anything is bought

The model can play a realistic incident: an intruder over the rear railings at one in the morning, say, on a moonless night. The simulation works out who is seen, lit or sensed, and when, with each countermeasure on its own and all of them together. A camera that would have caught them is kept; one that would not is moved or dropped before it is paid for.

BeforeBaseline
A simulation frame of the business court at night: two figures at the rear of an office, unseen by any camera, with the scenario clock in the caption.
The baseline. Two people at the rear of the building, and nothing sees them.
AfterCamera, floodlight and lighting
The same moment with a rear camera and a floodlight added: the camera's field of view is amber, the figures are lit and marked as detected.
A rear camera and a sensor light. The same two people, seen and lit.
Detection simulationIllustrative scenario
The simulation at the moment of detection: two figures crossing the back road into the rear camera's amber field of view, a dashed sight line from the camera, and three timed callouts reading that each person entered the view and the alarm was raised.
The moment it acts: the rear camera sees the two cross the back road, 42 seconds before the door is forced, and the monitoring centre is alerted.

Scenarios are illustrative. The simulation's answers follow from the model's stated assumptions and the data behind it, and the report says which is which.

05Installation, with the right people

Northwatch sells no equipment and employs no installers, so the specification is independent. Where equipment needs fitting, or licensed staff are needed, we bring in contractors we have vetted, brief them from the model, review their quotes, and liaise with them and with the local services for you: the police, the council, the alarm receiving centre and, for sites overseas, the host-nation authorities and emergency services. The installed result is checked against the plan before it is signed off.

You specify
A written specification from the model: what goes where, and why. Yours to put to any installer.
We vet
Installers and licensed providers checked for their accreditations, insurance and track record. You choose; we recommend.
We liaise
One point of contact between you, the contractors and the local or host-nation services, from the first quote to the handover.
We check
The installation walked and tested against the plan, after dark where it matters, and a written record of what was found.

06Afterwards: the site, in your hands

The plan does not end at handover. A quarterly re-check against the first report catches drift and new exposure early, and the model is updated as the site changes.

Ridgeline is built to become a live window onto your site: the coverage, the state of the systems that protect it and the plan behind them, under licence and managed by you. That is where it is heading. Today it is the planning tool behind every premises assessment. In development

Site modelRendered example site
A business court modelled from above at night: lamp columns lighting a car park of parked cars, three office buildings with lit windows, trees along the boundary.
The site from above at night: what the lighting covers and what it does not. A rendered example site.

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Security assessment from £400

An independent look at your organisation's security: physical, digital or both. Findings and priorities in writing, so you know what to fix first.

On-site visits are quoted with travel.

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Assessment · Advice · In writing

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