Gateshead College is the North East’s top performing FE college when it comes to student retention rates while it is in the top 10% of apprenticeship providers in England.
Operating across five major campuses across Tyne and Wear, the college provides a wide range of 16 – 19 year old training including A Levels and NVQ qualifications.It also delivers apprenticeship training and adult skills, helping to lift people out of unemployment and provide interview opportunities through partnerships with regional employers and JobCentre Plus.
The Challenge
The college needed to improve on-site IP (CCTV) Surveillance, security and access control across a number of modern but sprawling campuses strategically located across Gateshead and Wearside.
These are used by hundreds of people on a daily basis so it was critical to ensure easy access to facilities while providing the benefits of a safe and secure environment 24/7.
The advent of the college’s main Baltic campus – a state-of-the-art learning facility opened in 2008 – heralded a requirement for a new network to connect IT equipment and systems together via a new high performance and superfast cable infrastructure. This then had to be rolled out to provide reliable connectivity to the other campuses to provide Secure WAN connectivity.
The Solution
A high performance, high definition solution has been designed and installed at the college which draws on Advantex’s expertise in IP-based technologies, system integration and management expertise.
This has been built around 250 Axis IP cameras spread across five sites and Milestone VMS (Advantex are Platinum Partners) to connect together all the elements of the new CCTV via the internet and enabling remote monitoring from a single site.
The need for a secure WAN has been met with a high performance Cat 5e cable installation that connects all the college’s systems onto one network for fast, reliable and easy access via data ports throughout classrooms, offices, reception and library areas.
A support package that includes repair and maintenance call-out is in place, while inspections and health checks of all hardware and software (including software upgrades) are completed on a regular basis.
The Results
Gateshead College now benefits from a high level of security across all of its sites – a flexible system linked to a central facility via the internet for superior command and control of the cameras, site entry/exit and CCTV video images.
In-built scalability has also been included as part of the Advantex solution to deliver long term versatility– this enables the system to be expanded or upgraded as future monitoring and security needs change in line with other college facilities coming on-line.