Helping to weed out crime are CSO Kylee Berry and Andy Allen of the Worcester Allotment Forum. Although many people take steps to protect their homes and the property inside them, they leave valuable equipment in gardens and unsecured sheds, providing easy pickings for opportunist thieves.

Power tools, mowers, garden tools, mountain bikes and golf clubs are just some examples of expensive equipment left in sheds that are not strong or secure enough to protect them from thieves. To make matters worse, these stolen items could then be used by the intruder to break into your house.

Around 1,500 shed burglaries take place every year within West Mercia, which highlights the importance of storing valuable items securely. Effective garden security covers everything from boundary fences and gates to the valuables stored inside your shed.

As part of our Safe & Secure campaign we’ve pulled together the following hints and tips to keep your garden – and therefore your home – secure.

Top Tips for a Safer Garden, Shed Or Allotment

• Gates, fences and walls should be kept in good repair to stop intruders getting in
• Grow prickly plants close to vulnerable areas such as windows, fences, boundary walls and drainpipes
• Don’t leave expensive equipment like garden tools, mowers, mountain bikes and power tools in the shed
• If you have nowhere else to store valuable equipment, take measures to secure your shed
• Don’t leave ladders and tools lying around in your garden – these could be used to break into your home
• Mark your garden tools and equipment with your postcode

 You can download the ‘Nip Garden Crime in the Bud’ leaflet (Click Here) which is packed with more detailed practical advice on how to boost your outdoor security and protect your valuables.

Show Off Your Security Awareness!

To make sure any would-be thieves get the message, why not combine increased security measures with a more visual reminder.  Download and print out our ‘Stop – all valuables have been removed’ poster and put it in your shed or greenhouse window.   Reminder though to remove any valuables first! The poster can be printed from the www.westmercia.police.uk website.

Article Source : www.westmercia.police.uk

Lock your power tools, mowers, garden tools, mountain bikes and golf clubs in a secure Trimetals Titan Shed

Our range of metal garden sheds is unique. The design, strength and quality are unmatched by any other manufacturer.

Precision engineered from modern PVC-coated galvanised steel, which is approximately 50% thicker, with twice the paint thickness of most comparable garden sheds ensuring an extremely rigid and sturdy construction.

Titan garden sheds benefit from a maintenance-free construction and feature our 25 year panel guarantee. They are also fire-resistant and therefore highly recommended for use on mobile home sites or indeed any location where combustible buildings are unsuitable.

• Strong, Rigid & Unique Design
• Secure Locking Mechanism
• Maintenance-Free
• 25 Year Panel Guarantee
• PVC-Coated Galvanised Steel Construction
• Ventilated
• Fire-Resistant
• Simple, Rapid Construction
• Clear Step by Step Instructions
• Range of Accessories
• Double Doors available
• Available without windows

All Titan garden sheds feature a secure key operated locking mechanism that bolts both top and base of the doors making forced entry exceptionally difficult. For additional security we can supply buildings without windows, if preferred, or with our optional alarm.

For convenience, our metal garden sheds have been designed to be both simple and rapid to construct. We supply clear step-by-step fully illustrated instructions and our precision manufacturing methods ensure all components will accurately fit together.

The 108 is supplied with two windows and together with the Pent roof models, has wide double doors and is ideal for housing ride-on garden machinery.

The 630, 640, 660 and 680 feature one window and a single door as standard or can be supplied with two windows or double doors 1395mm wide (55″) as optional extras.Our Titan 600 garden sheds are unique in their design, strength and quality.

Tag and protect your cycle with ImmobiTag FREE when purchasing a Bicycle Store / Protectacycle online. This promotion will expire on the 31st December 2011.

ImmobiTag is easy to install in your bicycle’s frame and then almost impossible to remove. Register your ImmobiTag on www.immobilise.com and link your ownership details with the Nation Police Property Database (www.thenmpr.com). This online checking service is used by all UK Police forces to trace owners of lost and stolen property. In addition Immobilise is checked daily by a huge range of recovery agencies and lost property offices including the Transport For London Lost Property Office.

Find out more information on ImmobiTag visit their website: www.immobitag.com

Treat yourself to endless gardening experiences all year round when you join the RHS. Every day your membership will bring you something new – from days out at breathtakingly beautiful gardens and shows to one-to-one advice from our experts, as well as inspirational tips from a monthly magazine to help your garden flourish.

What’s more when you join the RHS, you’ll be supporting our charitable work. With the support of our members we are helping people share a passion for plants, encouraging communities to grow and promoting excellence in horticulture through events like RHS Britain in Bloom. 92p of every £1 of income is ploughed into current and future activity.

Enjoy a whole year of gardening inspiration for just £36.75 (individual membership) or £52.50 (joint membership) when you join the RHS by Direct Debit.

JOIN NOW Joint membership  (2 adults plus 1 family guest and up to 4 children)

Terms & conditions

If, like the vast majority of us, you missed out on tickets for the track cycling events at London 2012, later this month you have one last opportunity to get a seat in the velodrome to see some of the world’s top cyclists in action with tickets going on sale at 10am sharp on Thursday 17 November for the Olympic Test Event.

That event, in the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classic series, takes place between 16 and 19 February next year and marks the first competition at the venue in East London’s Olympic Park, with tickets priced between £10 and £40.

Part of the London Prepares series, tickets will be sold online by Ticketmaster and due to Visa’s sponsorship of the Olympics, only debit, credit and prepaid cards issued by that company can be used to buy them.

The same day sees tickets also go on sale for test events in gymnastics at the O2 Arena and diving at the Olympic Park’s Aquatic Centre.

Article Source: http://road.cc

 You’ll be able to get your hands on the hottest tickets in the gardening world soon.

Tickets will be on sale to RHS members on 1 November 2011and the general public on 1 December 2011.

Calender of Events

RHS Show Cardiff Apr 20–22 2012 Plan ahead for the 2012 RHS Show Cardiff. View details of the 2011 awards and events
Malvern Spring Gardening Show May 10–13 2012 The 2012 show is to be held 10–13 May. View 2011 coverage
RHS Chelsea Flower Show    May 22–26 2012 Chelsea is the ultimate event in the gardening calendar. Highlights of the 2011 show
BBC Gardeners’ World Live   Jun 13–17 2012 Make a date for next year: 13–17 June at the NEC, Birmingham. See what you missed in 2011
Hampton Court Palace Flower Show   Jul 3–8 2012 Next year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show will have a section dedicated to international gardens. View 2011 coverage
RHS Flower Show Tatton Park   Jul 18–22 2012 The RHS Flower Show Tatton Park is the perfect venue to see innovative & creative gardens. View 2011 coverage

Preview a route with a 3D birds-eye animation, whether you’re driving, walking, biking or using public transport

Google Maps now includes a cool new feature that lets you preview a route with a 3D birds-eye animation, whether you’re driving, walking, biking or using mass transit.

To use it, go to Google Maps, click “Get directions,” and input your start and end points — just like you would normally. From last Friday Google has added a small ’3D’ button next to ‘Driving directions to [your destination]‘.

Click on it and your once two-dimensional route comes to life in Google’s Web-based version of Google Earth. Now views allow you to see 3D rendering of elevations such as buildings, hills and mountains as Google flies you along your recommended route.

You can pause the flight by clicking anywhere in the 3D view or on the pause button in the lower left of the map. While the flight is paused, you can explore the surrounding area in 3D by clicking and dragging the map.

For instance, you could take a break from your helicopter ride and click on photos, YouTube videos or Wikipedia pages that are geolinked to locations along your route.

To resume the flight, you just click on the play button in the lower left of your map.

If you’re not sure which leg of the trip you’re seeing, just look to the left panel where it is highlighted in the directions. You can also use this panel to fast forward or reverse your virtual trip by clicking on a different step.

London 2012 organisers have unveiled the details of their £10 million improvement package for London’s cycle and walking networks, which they hope will encourage spectators to pedal and stroll to the Olympics next summer.

Some 300,000 spectators will cycle and walk to Games venues in London next summer, with 7,000 bike parking spaces being provided for at the Olympic Park.

Motorcycle insurance specialist Carole Nash is launching a groundbreaking new theft-reduction scheme which will see it provide a cutting edge forensic coding system to UK bikers.

In a pioneering initiative the company is to provide a sophisticated combination of microdot and Digital Nanoparticle Authentification (DNA) technologies free to any biker who takes out or renews a Carole Nash policy. Dubbed Carole Nash DNA+ the product comes as a liquid which can simply be dabbed on key components to create a unique ID – and irrefutable evidence of ownership. That ID, or DNA, is then stored on an international database which the police can swiftly access to identify the particular vehicle.

Carrying a retail value of £30, Carole Nash DNA+ first and foremost is a deterrent. Bikers are provided with tamper-proof stickers which highlight that their machine is protected by an advanced forensic coding system. This heightens “criminal anxiety” as it increases the chances of them being caught. Forensic coding proves a particular irritation to professional thieves as individual components carry a bike’s unique forensic signature making it much harder to break up and dispose of otherwise valuable spare parts.

The scheme is being soft launched over three months (between October 1st and December 31st) and becomes an invaluable addition to an already packed policy benefits package – the company provides UK and European breakdown cover (including Homestart), legal protection and foreign use as standard with all its road motorcycle policies. Carole Nash DNA+ will prove a powerful weapon in the war against bike thieves as the company currently covers around 300,000 motorcycles – equivalent to around 20 percent of all road licensed machines.

Explaining why it was launching the new scheme, Carole Nash’s commercial director Simon Jackson said: “As the UK’s favourite insurance specialist* we are acutely aware of the financial and emotional cost of theft to bikers and indeed biking. A study recently estimated that theft costs the industry some £105m and reported evidence that around 40 percent of theft victims actually then go on to leave biking. That’s bad news not just for our business but for biking itself, so we see this very much as an investment and one that is well worth making.”

“By equipping our customers with this highly sophisticated technology we hope not only to add value to their insurance policy but to reduce theft rates across our customer base.”

The move follows the recent release of the annual Carole Nash Motorcycle Theft Survey which, by using actual claims data, pinpointed which bikers in the UK were most at risk of theft. On its publication the Motorcycle Crime Reduction Group noted its concern that compared to the automotive sector, motorcycle thefts are increasing with 77 bikes and scooters being stolen in the UK every day.

The pilot scheme is open to any biker taking out a new motorcycle insurance policy or renewing an existing one with Carole Nash.

Keep Your Motorcycle Safe with ProtectaBike

The new Protect a Bike is a unique product – not only is it the only Motorcycle Garage available which has achieved Loss Prevention Certification Board approval to both level 1 and level 2 but it has also been awarded the Secured By Design mark (official Police Preferred Specification).

Protect a Bike is a complete security package which includes a heavy duty ground anchor (Sold Secure Gold rated) and 1.5m chain with padlock (both Thatcham Approved) for securing the motorcycle inside the garage – it also features a stainless steel hasp and padlock for the front doors (which is in addition to the standard door bolting system) and a battery operated PIR alarm system. Also all external bolts are fitted with lock nuts to prevent panels being removed from the outside.

Protect a Bike garages combine convenience with security and have a distinct advantage over other anti-theft devices as the motorbike is completely enclosed and out of sight. Over 40 years experience combined with superior design, quality, affordability and a choice of three sizes make Protect a Bike the best investment for you and your valuable motorcycle.

Protect a Bike™ Benefits

• Secured by Design tested and approved – POLICE PREFERRED SPECIFICATION
• approved to Loss Prevention Certification Board LPS1175 – Security rating 1 and 2
• ground anchor, security chain with padlock, secondary front door lock and PIR alarm are included.
• strong, rigid construction
• pvc coated galvanised steel panels – 25 year guarantee
• wide double door access
• keyed lock with cammed locking bar locating to both top and base of door
• stores up to two motorbikes (largest model)
• insurance discounts usually available
• motorcycle is out of sight
• recommended by uk’s leading magazines

Dimensions in Imperial (Feet/Inches)

For a quick, easy way to safely store your bike outdoors, look no further than the Trimetals Protect a Cycle outdoor storage unit. The tough, compact store has room for up to three full-size bikes. What’s more, it’s highly secure – boasting the Secured by Design mark, Police Preferred spec and Loss Prevention Board certification – which can help attract policy discounts from insurance companies.

Three heavy-duty padlocks, a ground anchor, galvanised steel construction and other high-security features protect your bike against both thieves and the elements. A spring-assisted opening mechanism makes lifting bikes in and out a simple task. The store comes with a 25-year panel guarantee and is available in a range of colours

Build It has two Trimetals Protect a Cycle outdoor storage unit to give away, worth £535 each.

For more information visitwww.protectacycle.co.uk

*For your chance to win, simply click on the button below to enter. Prize includes delivery but not installation. Competition closes on 1 November 2011.

http://www.self-build.co.uk/competitions/bikestore/

When car radios first went on sale 80 years ago they cost the equivalent of £1000, but such was their success at distracting from the incessant noise of a long motorway journey or tiresome passenger that they soon became a standard item. But while many cyclists now use an iPod, the bicycle equivalent of a car stereo is confined to the cumbersome and power-hungry sound systems built for events such as Skyride, Carnival or Critical Mass. Until now.

Dutch designers Merel Sloother, Liat Azulay and Pieter Frank de Jong this week unveiled a prototype of their wonderfully-whimsical ‘Feats per Minute’ project, a bicycle that uses pedal power to play vinyl records on its wheels as the rider cruises through the city

The bike is on show until 16th October at the Dezeen Space in London.

This invention is going to attractive a lot of unwanted attention so be sure to lock your bicycle in secure storage if this is on your wish list.

Will this catch on? We’re saying ‘very unlikely’.