When you think about all the tradesmen who are living working in and around a large cities such as Nottingham like electricians, heating engineers, locksmiths etc you assume that because all of these tradesmen work in both domestic and commercial premises and the work they do can have an impact on the safety and the security of the people living and working in these buildings you believe that these industries and trades are government regulated but you would be wrong in thinking that.
Electricians are regulated by NICEIC, Heating Engineers are regulated by Gas Safe (formerly Corgi), both can only work in their chosen profession if they have passed certain courses but you’d be surprised to hear that the locksmith industry has no regulation and never has which only came to light with the authorities after the Grenfell Tower disaster when it was discovered that doors and locks where incorrectly fitted, many of which where not even British Standard locks which caused the fire to spread quicker than expected and fire doors did not stop the fire spreading due to inexperienced fitter not understand how they work and how they should have been fitted and tested and causing many lives to be lost.
A similar incident happened in a Scottish office building where automatic fire doors that where meant to automatically open during a fire alarm allowing people to escape, automatically locked instead resulting in many avoidable deaths.
For some reason the industry tasked with working on locks and security on both domestic and commercial buildings has been completely overlooked by the government and it’s not just the fact that unskilled, untrained individuals can set up as a locksmith without any training whatsoever, there is also no DBS check required either meaning that convicted criminals, thieves, burglars even rapists could end up working in the locksmith industry, I said could but this has already happened in The North East where independent locksmith David Stokoe from Sunderland was given a 15 year jail sentence for 3 violent rapes that he committed whilst working as an emergency locksmith.
So it is confirmed that there are locksmiths out there with criminal convictions trusted not only supplying new locks and keys to residential and commercial premised, but who have the tools to break into your home or business and if the police stop and locksmith in the earlier hours h can’t even be accused of ‘going equipped’ because he is only carrying tools related to his industry, and that’s scary.
Why Nottingham Locksmith Are Keen for Regulation
The Grenfell Tower tragedy and the rapist working as a locksmith are just a couple of severe cases that we have highlighted, however, professional locksmiths have been crying out for regulation for years in an effort to get rid of the amateurs and the unskilled ‘have a go’ locksmith who are giving the whole industry a bad name.The locksmith who will damage your door and lock beyond repair so that they can sell you a new one, overpriced of course or the unscrupulous locksmith who’ll bump up the final bill with extras such as night rate, travel expenses, fuel, callout fee so they can charge their victims 100’s of pounds for a call out that should cost between £60 and £80.
Being quite central, close to the M1 motorway network and within easy access of towns and cities such as Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield, Coventry, Peterborough etc, Nottingham has become a sort of hub for these amateur locksmiths, locksmiths with no training or knowledge of the industry simply going after quick emergency access jobs where they can just ‘break in’ using hammers, drills or whatever they have at their disposal and then charge you, the customer for the damage they have cause as well as new locks that you probably wouldn’t of needed if you have use a skilled professional.
This is a growing problem and why regulation is welcomed by many professional and fully locksmiths in the industry.
When Does Regulation Come Into Force?
The government is working closely with the UK’s top locksmith training college ‘Train Locksmiths‘ designing courses and certification.Mandatory courses are rumoured to come into force later this year with regulation being phrased in soon afterwards.
Word is that when regulation first comes into force locksmiths will have a couple of years to complete the necessary course and get certification. All locksmiths operating in the UK regardless of how long they have been trading and working as a locksmith will need certification other wise they’ll be breaking the law.
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