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John the Gate Man, gate automation specialist in Leyland, Lancashire
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Automated driveway gates of the kind installed and serviced across Lancashire

Lancashire service area

Gate Automation in Blackpool

Gate automation in Blackpool covers a narrower slice of the housing stock than it does inland, for a simple reason: a great deal of the town is densely built terraced streets with no frontage to put a gate across. Where driveway gate work concentrates is the interwar and later suburban housing away from the promenade, particularly the large houses laid out around Stanley Park, and the yards, car parks and service entrances behind commercial and hospitality premises. John the Gate Man works from House Farm in Leyland, PR25 1LE.

Blackpool Council has been a unitary authority since 1998, so planning permission and vehicle crossing approval both go to the same place. There are seven conservation areas in the town: the town centre, Stanley Park, Raikes Hall, Marton Moss, North Promenade, Layton and Foxhall. The Stanley Park area is the one that matters most for gates, because it was laid out to a street plan by Thomas Mawson in the 1920s and is valued specifically for its large interwar houses and their gardens, boundary walls and verges. Boundary treatments there are looked at rather more carefully than elsewhere.

The commercial and hospitality side of the town brings its own requirements, and they are mostly about controlling who gets in rather than about the gate leaf. A rear yard behind a guest house, a small car park serving a business, or a service entrance that has to admit deliveries and staff but nobody else, all point at access control and an intercom rather than at a remote fob on its own. Gates on that kind of premises also run far more cycles than a domestic drive, so the specification and the service interval both need to follow the use.

Gate services in Blackpool

Automation, installation, servicing and repair, together with the intercoms and access control that decide who gets through the gate.

Gate Automation

Motorise the gates you already have, with the safety equipment the law requires.

Gate Installation

New gates supplied and fitted, from the posts up, manual or automated.

Gate Servicing

Planned maintenance and safety checks that keep an automatic gate legal and working.

Gate Repair

Gates that have stopped working, dropped, or been damaged, put right.

Intercoms

See and speak to whoever is at the gate, and let them in without walking down the drive.

Access Control

Control who can open the gate, and how, without handing a key to everyone.

Gate questions in Blackpool

Do I need planning permission for electric gates in Blackpool?
Not usually, provided the gate is no more than one metre high where it faces a road used by vehicles, or two metres elsewhere on the boundary. Above those heights an application goes to Blackpool Council. Permitted development is removed within the curtilage of a listed building, and an Article 4 direction can remove it inside a conservation area, which is worth checking around Stanley Park and Raikes Hall in particular.
Are there extra restrictions in the Stanley Park conservation area?
The area was designated because of the quality of its interwar housing and the way the street plan, gardens, boundary walls and verges work together, so anything altering a boundary is considered in that light. That does not mean gates cannot be fitted, but the design, height and materials matter more than they would elsewhere, and permitted development rights may have been withdrawn. Blackpool Council can confirm what applies to a specific address.
My house is a terrace with no driveway. Can I still have a gate?
Not a driveway gate, but a pedestrian gate on a rear yard or a back alley entrance is a different question and is often possible. Automating a pedestrian gate is usually about access control rather than a drive motor: an electric lock release with a keypad, a fob reader or an intercom will let people in without a key, and that is a much smaller job than automating vehicle gates.
Can you fit an intercom to gates at a Blackpool property?
Yes. Audio and video intercoms are fitted as part of gate automation, with a panel at the gate and a handset or screen inside. On premises where staff, deliveries and visitors all arrive at the same entrance, an intercom is usually the piece that makes the gate workable, because it lets someone inside decide who comes in without going out to the gate.
What access control works for a yard or car park entrance?
For a small commercial entrance the usual combination is fobs or a keypad for the people who come every day, plus an intercom for deliveries and visitors. Coded entry avoids handing out fobs to occasional users, and codes can be changed when they need to be. Where the gate is out of sight of the building, a system that calls a phone lets it be answered from wherever someone happens to be.
Do gates on commercial premises need more frequent servicing?
Yes, because the interval should follow the number of cycles rather than the calendar. A gate on a working yard can do more movements in a month than a domestic gate does in a year, and hinges, racks, rollers and safety edges wear at that rate. There is also a separate legal duty to maintain and inspect work equipment on business premises, which sits on top of the safety obligations that apply to any powered gate.
Does being near the sea change how a gate should be specified?
It does. Salt air attacks fixings, hinge pins, cut edges of galvanising and anything electrical that is not properly sealed, and onshore wind loads a solid gate heavily. Practically that means protected or stainless fixings, outdoor rated enclosures with cable entries sealed from below, and a drive rated with margin above the still air weight of the leaf if the gate is solid.
Are underground motors suitable in Blackpool?
They can be used, but the foundation box has to drain. The town is flat and low lying, and a box that holds water will shorten the life of the motor inside it, which is a slow and expensive fault to discover. Where reliable drainage is not achievable, articulated ram arms mounted to the pillar do the same job above ground and are much easier to service.
Who approves a dropped kerb in Blackpool?
Blackpool Council, because as a unitary authority it is the highway authority as well as the planning authority. A new or widened vehicle crossing needs approval and must be constructed to the council's specification. It is worth resolving before gates are ordered, since the finished crossing width sets the opening.
Does a gate at a small business have to be force tested?
Yes. A powered gate is classed as machinery in law regardless of where it is fitted, so the trapping and crushing risks have to be designed out, appropriate safety devices fitted, and the forces measured against the limits set out in BS EN 12453. On commercial premises the ongoing duty is stricter, and it falls on the business, the landlord or the managing agent depending on the arrangement.

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