Alley gating
Alleys can be really useful, especially for people who live in terraced housing. They allow you to get to the rear of your homes to put out the bin and prevent you from having to carry DIY materials through your house.
They are also, unfortunately, sometimes useful to criminals. If a burglar is planning on breaking into your home the two most important things they think about are, will they be seen and can they escape? Burglars prefer to break into homes through the back door or windows. Access through the front of properties accounts for only 15% of domestic burglaries.
A criminal can use the alleyway at the back of a terrace house without being seen, even in broad daylight. If criminals know the alleyways in an area well, they can also use them as escape routes. Alley gating restricts access to the rear of homes in order to prevent crime being carried out.
This isn't, though, a new concept - it is believed that many alleys were gated prior to World War II. The gates and railings were removed to be melted down for the war effort but they were never replaced as open alleys did not then pose a security problem. Nowadays, the design and layout of older properties play a major role in increasing the opportunities for criminal behaviour.
Gating off these alleys to allow access only to residents helps keep burglars out. Alley gating has many benefits. Schemes carried out in other cities have shown that burglary rates are reduced drastically.
For more information about alley gating please email housingcrimereduction@salford.gov.uk or telephone 0161 604 7718.
Downloadable documents
If you are unable to view documents of these types, our downloads page provides links to viewing software.
This page was last updated on 07 October 2008
Email this page to a friend
Bookmark this page using:
Find out more about social bookmarking.
These sites allow you to store, tag and share links across the internet. You can share these links both with friends and people with similar interests. You can also access your links from any computer you happen to be using.
If you come across a page on our site that you find interesting and want to save for future reference or share it with other people, simply click on one of these links to add to your list.
All of these sites are free to use but do require you to register. Once you have registered you can begin bookmarking. Each of the sites works slightly differently so use the links below to find out which service best suits your needs.
Find out more about social bookmarking at Wikipedia.
