Fire risk assessments, fire alarm maintenance, CCTV and access control for shops, landlords, managing agents and business occupiers across Staines-upon-Thames, Egham Hythe and Laleham.
Staines is the principal town centre in Spelthorne, with two shopping centres, a listed market core and a Thames floodplain setting. Across the Thames, the Causeway business area at Egham Hythe falls under Runnymede Borough Council, so one client can deal with two councils.
IDS Global has traded since 2011 from one office at 27-37 Station Road, Hayes, and is a member of the IFSM and the FPA. From Hayes, the A312 Parkway runs south to the A30 interchange at Hatton, and the A30 continues west past Heathrow towards Staines and M25 junction 13.
Spelthorne's Local Plan, adopted in March 2026, puts Staines at the top of the borough's centre hierarchy and makes it a key focus for housing, employment and retail growth. The High Street has fine-grain buildings of three to five storeys, while recent London Road schemes rise to between 10 and 15 storeys. The Elmsleigh Centre offers about 260,000 sq ft of covered retail and a multi-storey car park of about 510 spaces, opposite Two Rivers, which stands on the site of the old linoleum factory.
Retail is set to give way to homes in places. The plan allocates the Elmsleigh site for up to 850 homes with shops beneath, and the Two Rivers Retail Park Terrace for up to 750 homes, though the latter cannot proceed until a safe flood escape route exists. These are allocations, not permissions. East of the river, Runnymede's plan protects the Causeway and Pinetrees Business Park and Thorpe Industrial Estate as strategic employment areas, and notes that much of Egham Hythe lies in the Thames floodplain.
Staines has a habit of reusing its buildings. The 1880s Town Hall is now flats, and the old brewery tower has been converted to offices and homes.
We assess retail, offices and the flats above as one building. The action plan covers compartmentation, fire doors, alarm coverage and escape routes, and is written for the responsible person to work through in order.
Fire risk assessments
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service attends automatic alarms at business properties only when a fire is confirmed, at any hour, including bank holidays. Its advice to businesses is to keep key holder details accurate with the monitoring company and to consider linking alarms to CCTV.
That makes maintenance decisive. A well-tested system with current key holders and remote monitoring means someone can check a signal and call 999 without delay. We service and monitor BS 5839 systems in shops, offices, flats and units, and keep the key holder list current.
Fire alarm maintenance and monitoring
Police.uk records for August 2025 to July 2026 show about 296 shoplifting offences inside the Staines Town neighbourhood boundary, against about 10 in Staines Urban.
The town's business improvement district already links shop radios to CCTV control rooms, so footage that can be exported quickly for staff and police has real value. We fit cameras to cover entrances, tills, stockrooms and rear service yards, chosen for the lighting and distances on site.
CCTV installation
Runnymede treats the Causeway and Thorpe Industrial Estate as protected employment land, so units there mix warehouse floors, offices and yards behind shared gates. In the town centre, converted buildings combine flats with commercial space.
Fobs or cards on the office door, goods entrance and stair core let a manager decide who reaches which floor, and a lost fob can be cancelled without changing a lock.
Access controlSpelthorne designated the Staines Conservation Area in 1975. The amended appraisal, which records adoption on 19 April 2023, counts almost 40 listed buildings, with St Mary's Church and The Blue Anchor at Grade II* and the rest Grade II. It names Market Square and the Town Hall, with its listed fire engine shed, as landmarks.
The appraisal criticises oversized signs and unsuitable shopfronts, says a property should carry one main fascia sign, and asks for hand painted timber fascias on historic buildings. Bell boxes, cameras and cable runs are judged the same way, so we agree positions before starting and keep visible equipment small.
Both councils license HMOs with five or more people from two or more households under the mandatory scheme, and neither council's HMO page lists an additional or selective scheme. Spelthorne's page, last updated in June 2026, sets a £2,225 application fee and asks for a written fire risk assessment. Runnymede lists a basic fee of £815 and five year licences.
Spelthorne has also made Article 4 directions, in force from 29 August 2025 for three wards and 13 March 2026 for the rest, so converting a home into a small HMO now needs planning permission.
The old Staines fire station on Town Lane is disused, and Spelthorne's plan says a new station in Ashford has replaced it. Surrey Fire and Rescue lists Fordbridge, on Kingston Road, TW15 3SL, with a wholetime crew 24 hours a day and a day crew, and Egham on the High Street with a day crew.
The plan names Staines and Shepperton as the worst flood-affected parts of the borough. The Environment Agency says the Thames between Egham and Teddington is on the largest area of undefended, developed floodplain in England. For ground floor shops and units, we treat flood as a fire safety issue: alarm panels, control equipment and cabling should sit above likely water levels.
We counted police.uk street-level crimes inside each Surrey Police neighbourhood boundary for August 2025 to July 2026. Police.uk anonymises locations, so the figures are approximate. Staines Town recorded about 1,898 crimes, including 296 shoplifting, 31 theft from the person and 21 burglaries. Staines Urban recorded about 852, with 43 vehicle crimes and 41 burglaries. Thorpe and Hythe, a Runnymede neighbourhood, recorded about 1,337, including 86 shoplifting, 59 vehicle crimes and 36 burglaries.
Visit Staines, the business improvement district, represents around 300 town centre businesses. Its Staisafe radio network covers over 60 premises and links to control rooms at Elmsleigh, Two Rivers and Runnymede's CCTV centre.
Only if a fire is confirmed. Surrey attends automatic alarms at business premises when a fire is confirmed, at all hours, and its control room asks the occupier to check the cause. Your fire risk assessment should name who checks the alarm and who calls 999, and monitoring should hold accurate key holder details.
Only if five or more people from two or more households live there. Spelthorne and Runnymede both list only the mandatory scheme on their HMO pages. In Spelthorne, though, turning a home into a small HMO now needs planning permission because of the Article 4 directions. We can carry out the fire risk assessment the council asks for.
Usually, with care. The conservation area holds almost 40 listed buildings, and the appraisal objects to intrusive shopfront and signage changes. We survey first, favour compact housings and hidden cable routes, and advise you to check with Spelthorne Borough Council before anything is fixed to a listed frontage.
The fire safety duties are the same, but the council is Runnymede rather than Spelthorne. Much of Egham Hythe is in the Thames floodplain, so we ask where the alarm panel, gate controller and recorder are mounted and how they would cope in a flood.
