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Hoyer, Huddersfield tanker depot

A 14-acre tanker depot moving hazardous goods, with a gate that runs itself. How a security tender became 61 cameras, road barriers, and footage clear enough for the police.

Logistics and distribution Huddersfield 2014 CCTV Access control

Cameras on site today, from 45 at install
61
Covered, gate to perimeter, over fibre
14 acres
Intercom stations tied to the barriers and doors
7
Hoyer’s reception building in Huddersfield

A yard that never really closes

Hoyer moves bulk liquids: gas, petroleum, food and chemicals. Its UK headquarters sits on fourteen acres in Huddersfield, and the road tankers that work the country run from here. Vehicles arrive around the clock. Drivers, contractors and auditors come and go. Much of what passes through the gate is hazardous, and the regulators who audit the site expect security to be taken as seriously as the cargo.

When Hoyer went out to tender, it wanted more than cameras on poles. It wanted a site that knew who was on it.

Choosing a partner, not a product

Several specialists were considered. What set Centurion apart was not a brochure but a room: the in-house demo suite in Huddersfield, where Hoyer’s team could sit in front of the competing systems, compare the picture quality and the search tools side by side, and decide for themselves.

Then came the site meetings. Where do vehicles queue at the gate? Which doors matter at three in the morning? Where does a claim for a slip or a scrape usually happen? The design was fine-tuned around those answers before a single cable was pulled.

Hoyer road tankers in the Huddersfield yard

A gate that runs itself

Installed in 2014, the system was an integrated Milestone CCTV platform of 45 high-definition cameras, with ANPR at the entrance, all linked by fibre optic cabling across the site. Alongside it went a Net2 access control system with 20 cameras, seven intercom call stations and the road barriers tied into the same logic. The result is a yard that is almost entirely automated.

Two monitors showing Hoyer’s camera views and a map of the site
The Milestone platform: live camera views beside a map of the site.

It has not stood still. Cameras have been added year after year as the site has changed, and the count is now 61. Software upgrades run on a regular cycle so the platform stays current, all under the maintenance contract.

On working with Centurion, Alan Rawlinson, the site manager, said: “We are really pleased with Centurion, and it’s nice that they are a local company. We have a good working relationship, I can phone them up for advice or problems that I cannot resolve over the phone, and I know Centurion will visit the site the same day to help/repair, as part of our ongoing maintenance contract.”

What the footage has been worth

The obvious return is control: nobody gets onto the site unseen. The unexpected return is money. A handful of visitors have claimed against Hoyer for slips, falls and vehicle damage. The footage showed what happened, and the claims were dropped.

The outcome

“The system is essential for us. It gives us total peace of mind that nobody can gain unauthorised access to our site. … West Yorkshire Police also visit us quite often to ask for CCTV images, and it’s nice to be able to provide them with such clear footage.”

Alan Rawlinson, Site manager, Hoyer Huddersfield