RCA Villages

When designing and building villages, RCA is keenly aware of the need to balance and manage a range of different requirements:

• Offering top class community facilities, easily accessible to all residents and at the same time keeping them secure and in good condition for residents’ enjoyment
• Security - ensuring that residents feel secure in their villas or apartments
• Managing visitor access so that residents can easily invite their family and friends, but feel safe from unwanted external visitors.
• Whilst residents are generally fit and healthy, some may have early stages of illnesses such as dementia. RCA is very much aware of protecting these residents from situations of potential danger, whilst not curtailing their independence.
• Retaining the village feel - residents want to live independent lives, without too many staff around, yet know help is available when they need it.

RCA manages this balance with an electronic access control system (EAC) from SALTO. RCA fits the SALTO XS4 One, XS4 Mini and XS4 Original electronic locks - as opposed to traditional key locks. Residents have a fob that acts as their key - each fob can be programmed based on the areas that that particular resident can access. Access can also be managed by day and time - for example, if the pool shuts at night, the fob will only open the door during the allowed access hours.

SALTO’s EAC also generates reports that show Village management who has accessed which areas and when.

Peter Quinn, RCA’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) explains how they use the SALTO system: “We put SALTO EAC locks on the front doors of clubhouses”, he says, “to ensure that only residents and their guests can use them. The residents feel a sense of ‘ownership’ of their clubhouse, and want to know it is protected.”

At some sites, RCA also uses SALTO for internal clubhouse doors. “There are some parts of the clubhouse where we need to control access”, explains Peter, “either for safety or to protect valuable assets, such as bar stock. The SALTO system means we can ensure that only those residents who work behind the bar have access to the ‘back of house’. Or, where we have residents who would not be safe around the pool, we can restrict them from entering the area.” The system not only blocks access to unauthorised users, but its reports show Village management who has tried to access each area. This information helps to detect potential security or safety issues.

The SALTO EAC was suggested and installed by Eclipse Security Systems. Managing Director, Greg Flood, explains why SALTO was the perfect fit: “Many RCA villages have remote buildings, such as an admin or IT offices or an apartment building. SALTO’s unique data-on-card approach gave us the option to manage the access to those buildings via offline doors, without a network and cabling. We could offer full access control, but with reduced time, effort and cost to install and manage.”

“SALTO’s wireless approach also made it feasible to retrofit the solution to existing village properties, which was another key decision factor”, says Greg. “When we started with SALTO, RCA already had several villages in operation, but this was not an issue - we were able to install SALTO in those properties with minimal fuss.”

The SALTO EAC has replaced traditional keys for shared access points like external gates, making them much easier to manage. “If just one resident lost their key”, Peter explains, “we had to change the locks on the gates and issue new keys to hundreds of residents. After switching the gates to the SALTO Geo Cylinder, it’s a simple question of cancelling and replacing one fob.”

In the newer developments, the SALTO system will be built in from the beginning and even more widely used - “In the villages that have apartment buildings”, says Peter, “we will connect all the doors via Wi-Fi. That means that the village manager can lock or unlock the apartments remotely. If a resident did lock themselves out, they could be back in their home in the time it takes to make a call, rather than waiting for the manager to drive back to the village and let them in.”

At RCA’s latest development, entry gates controlled by the SALTO EAC manage access by reading number plates. Residents can register their own car, and those of their approved visitors, combining ease of access to those they want in the village with excluding those they don’t.

“In the future, says Greg, “we’re also looking at extending the number plate recognition to service vehicles, such as council rubbish collection, or maintenance providers. It will make running the villages even more efficient, for staff and suppliers alike.”

“We’re looking to expand our use of the SALTO system all the time”, says Peter. “It’s very friendly in its format, and adding new elements is easy.” 

Peter is delighted with the SALTO system and sees it being used even more widely in the future.

“SALTO makes running our villages so much easier”, he says. “Eventually we’d like to extend SALTO throughout every area of every property,” he says, “including the front doors of individual villas. Then residents could have a single, personalised fob that gives them access to every part of the village.”

“SALTO helps us to deliver what is important to our residents”, he concludes. “An active, healthy and engaging lifestyle, combined with security, safety and peace of mind.”