“Recent years have seen a spike in cases of urban exploration. Melton student fell to death from abandoned hotel used by ‘urban explorers’, Leicester MercuryĬonstruction News quotes the MD of Wates Construction London, Richard Shroll as saying: Mother’s warning after urban explorer dies in abandoned building, The Times Moment urban explorer falls through roof of abandoned building and is left dangling over huge drop, Liverpool Echo You don’t have to look far to find a raft of media stories of injuries and even deaths that have occurred from urban exploring. These include: hazards such as unstable structures, unsafe floors, broken glass, stray voltage, entrapment hazards, or unknown chemicals and other harmful substances (most notably asbestos). to name a few. The dangers associated with urban exploring, especially at construction sites, are numerous – not just the risk of falling from dizzy heights. However, the recent rise in popularity of the hobby has brought claims that this rule is no longer being followed which is greatly concerning, especially for the construction industry. The old adage “take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints” has often been applied to urban exploration. Urbex has become a trend fuelled by social media sharing, generating ten of millions of views as these fearless adventurers and daredevils explore forbidden areas and document their actions with videos and photographs. “Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof-and-tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment.” That’s without the addition of ‘urban explorers’ trespassing on private sites to perform their reckless stunts on scaffolding, cranes and site equipment – which can be dangerous places to play around in.
With an increase of 50% in intrusions during lockdown alone, Construction sites are blighted with the constant threat of trespass, plant theft, criminal damage and even arson which cost them £400 million a year according to the Chartered Institute of Building. This image was captured on camera by Farsight’s eagle eyed remote monitoring CCTV operators for our clients Permanex who are a leading construction and temporary site security provider. Instances just like the image above, are all too common. These so called urban explorers trespass sites to practice their climbing and take videos of their antics to share on social media – causing risk to not only themselves but to construction firm’s premises, assets and people. Increasingly, construction sites are being targeted by thrill seeking trespassers calling themselves urban explorers.
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