SBD member companies Vaylia and Marshalls create strategic relationship

Secured by Design member companies, Vaylia Limited, integrated security experts, and Marshalls PLC, a protective landscaping industry business, have recently announced a strategic relationship.

Vaylia reached out to Marshalls earlier in the year looking to collaborate with them on their RhinoGuard GateKeeper product, which is a crash-tested, hostile vehicle mitigation solution that allows roads and entrances to public areas to be temporarily blocked off whilst allowing the safe free flow of pedestrians.

“The conversations were open and easy”

Paul Painter, Chief Executive Officer of Vaylia Limited, said: “Once we identified GateKeeper as a building block, we moved quickly to set up meetings with the Marshalls Landscape Protection team. We discussed our future vision and the development route that we planned to follow.

“The conversations were open and easy, Marshalls also shared their future ambitions with us. The collaboration has already created some significant product developments which will be released soon and are set to redefine temporary security overlay.”

As a part of this new relationship, Vaylia will start to market a range of Marshalls Landscape Protection products including crash-tested street furniture and protective bollards.

Chris Plimley, Vaylia Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Paul and I have a direction of travel where we are looking to develop an innovative range of solutions for the high security temporary overlay environment. We have both been involved in major events where temporary overlay has been crucial to safety and security.

“We both quickly identified the GateKeeper product as a great starting point that we could build a portfolio of products around.”

Plimley continued: “I have known some of the Marshalls team for many years and it was an easy conversation to have. GateKeeper is successfully tested to IWA-14 Standards without the need for any ground pinning or wedging making this a truly temporary product.

“GateKeeper is an exciting product that collectively we can develop further with the Marshalls Landscape Protection team and we have already made some exciting progress. Watch this space!”

“We recognised the strong synergy between their vision and ours”

Jaz Vilkhu, Managing Director of Marshalls Landscape Protective products, spoke about their relationship with Vaylia: “When we were approached by Vaylia we recognised an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded people who have a passion for Landscape Protection, an area in which we have specialised for a number of years.

“We recognised the strong synergy between their vision and ours, as well as a good cross over of complimentary products that would allow us to work together to create an all-encompassing product offer for our respective markets.

“We believe this relationship will go from strength to strength, creating further opportunities and product developments in the future.”

Vilkhu continued: “The RhinoGuard® GateKeeper® is a product that we are very proud of, it offers crash tested, temporary protection without the need for anchorage and really is one of the most innovative temporary protection solutions on the market. Working with Vaylia to develop products around the GateKeeper is not only a positive for me and my team but also the industry as a whole.”

The government has outlined its support for pubs, cafes, restaurants and other businesses, and has made the process easier for pavement licencing and road closures to facilitate al-fresco dining and drinking. The current social distancing rules produce a knock-on effect in terms of the amount of covers a facility can provide per service.

By opening pavement licencing, operators can expand the number of covers that they can provide and still adhere to COVID-19 guidance, safe from the threat of miscreant Vehicle as a Weapon (VAW) attacks and accidental impacts.

Painter further remarked: “Vaylia has some very interesting products coming to the marketplace with GateKeeper being one of them. It isn’t just about product development though. Vaylia has also created capacity to deploy and install not only temporary but also permanent solutions.”

Vaylia and Marshalls pool expertise

Both Vaylia and Marshalls are members of Secured by Design (SBD), the official police security initiative, which is the only way for companies to obtain police recognition for security-related products in the UK.

Alfie Hosker, SBD Technical Manager, said it is great two see two SBD member companies – Vaylia, a new member from the summer of 2020, and Marshalls, a long-standing member company – pooling their expertise to underline their commitment to create safer streets and safer places.

“The timing of this collaboration is especially significant in the light of recent terrorist attacks in continental Europe and the raising of the threat level in the UK. It also follows the recently updated and released National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) Crowded Places Guidance which highlights the need for hostile vehicle mitigation amongst other measures,” said Hosker.

SBD is referenced six times in the Government’s Crowded Places Guidance document, which was published on 2 November 2020. The Guidance seeks to advise the security sector and business owners on how to make it harder for terrorists to plan and carry out attacks.

To find out more information, visit: https://www.securedbydesign.com/