Site security for holiday parks and campsites through the seasons

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In July your park is a small village. In January all you hear is the wind. Each of those faces asks something different of your security, and a set-up that stays the same all year suits neither. Good site security for holiday parks and campsites moves with occupancy, opening hours and the periods when nobody is on site at all.

1Two parks in one year: peak season and the winter quiet

In peak season a site largely looks after itself. There are staff at reception, guests see what is going on around them and an unfamiliar car is quickly noticed. The risks then shift towards crowds: who is allowed to drive where, who is wandering around the plant rooms at night, and what you do when an incident happens on a full site.

After the autumn half-term, the situation is reversed. Chalets stand empty, shower blocks are locked and reception is staffed for only a few hours a week. That is exactly when a park is vulnerable, because nobody notices that anything is happening until the first member of staff comes by again.

2What disappears in the quiet months

The patterns repeat themselves across many parks. Copper taken from electrical cabinets, gas installations stripped for scrap metal, solar panels removed from the roofs of service buildings, and shower blocks used as a place to sleep. The material damage is often not even the biggest problem. A damaged gas installation remains a safety risk until the supplier has been out, and missing panels mean an installer on the roof in the very week you want to open. That delay at the start of the season often costs more than the items themselves.

Fire is the second story. On a campsite, barbecues, gas bottles beside chalets, e-bike batteries and small solar set-ups on campervans all come together. In an empty shower block or a locked storeroom nobody notices a smouldering cable, unless there is detection in place that alerts someone.

3Site security for holiday parks that scales with you

What works on these sites is a set-up you can scale up and down by season. In summer, light camera surveillance at the entrance, the plant rooms and the storage areas is often enough. In winter, mobile towers are added at the spots that are then empty and out of sight. A Darwin Tower stands without foundations, so you do not need to put posts in between the trees and it can be removed again after the season.

At the barrier, access control with number plate recognition or a personal code for regular guests helps. In the low season you tighten it: only known vehicles are let in and any other entry triggers an alert. For fire in shower blocks and storerooms, wireless detection is practical, because you do not have to run cables through old buildings.

Many parks are in rural areas where fixed fibre does not reach everywhere. Security should therefore run on its own connection, separate from the guest network. If the guest wifi goes down, that is annoying. If the connection to your cameras goes down, you can no longer see anything.

4A park with chalets and its own marina

Picture a holiday park with a few hundred chalets, a restaurant and a small marina. In summer the marina is the busiest spot and plenty of people are about in the evening. In winter, boats are laid up in storage, the chalets are empty and the restaurant and the plant room are the most valuable places. A logical set-up is then a fixed base at the entrance and the marina, supplemented by mobile towers that move to the boat storage and the back rows of chalets in October and relocate again in April. Fire detectors in the boat storage and the restaurant are active all year round. In this way the same resources work, in every season, where the risk lies at that moment.

5How Darwin sets up seasonal security

We start by looking at your park’s annual curve: when it is full, when it is empty, and where the spots are that are vulnerable in each season. We then match the deployment of cameras, fire detection and access to that, with a schedule for scaling up and down. Our own engineers install and relocate the systems, and it remains one managed system with one fixed project price, even if you agree it for several years. We arrange the connection together with Odido, our Global Connectivity & Strategic Partner.

Alerts go to your own monitoring centre or to that of our regular partner. If you also want people on site in peak season, such as gate staff or patrols, we put you in touch with one of our regular partners for physical security. You can read more about this sector under recreation and holiday park security. In the design, we also take account of the guidelines that Dutch municipalities give to operators, including through the VNG, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities.

6Frequently asked questions

When should I arrange the winter set-up for my park?

Well before the end of the season. That way you can look together at which spots will be empty, and the set-up is ready the moment the last guests leave.

Do cameras intrude on guests’ privacy?

They do not have to. You point cameras at entrances, plant rooms and storage, not at chalets or terraces. In the low season coverage can be wider, because there are no guests on site then.

Can I use the same towers again every year?

Yes. A tower can be removed after the winter and return the following year to the same spot or a different one. It does need power, unless you extend it with solar or wind.