Northern Territory crime: How businesses are trying to stay safe

Territorians are investing big dollars to stay safe in the current crime wave. Read what’s being done.

Territory businesses, homeowners and even sporting organisations are going to extraordinary lengths – and expense – to stay crime free.

From simulation razor wire to bollards and roller-shutters, property owners are spending tens-of-thousands of dollars to keep themselves, staff and customers safe.

After a series of ram-raids in the Top End, the Palmerston Cricket Club recently installed out-sized concrete bollards to stop vehicles driving into the clubhouse and change rooms.

Palmerston cricket club’s bollards.

The body corporate of an apartment complex in Nightcliff located just metres from the government’s $12m new police station has been forced to install a form of razor wire to discourage intruders from illegally entering the premises and stealing or damaging property.

A Yarrawonga diesel mechanic responded to weekend ram raids by installing bollards out the front of the workshop and in Alice Springs the operators of Northside IGA have reacted to ram raids by also building concrete pillars.

Palmerston cricket club bollards after an early-October club working bee.

Police in Alice Springs also reported two ram raids in the town early on Monday when a stolen work utility was used in a ram raid at Kidman Street Ciccone and on Stuart Terrace, The Gap, where another vehicle was stolen.

A spokesman with connections to the body corporate associated with the Nightcliff property said about $13,000 was spent laying a strip of so-called crocs-teeth fence spikes atop a side fence bordering the Progress Drive and Phoenix Street.

The spokesman said the move was in response to multiple intrusions into the four-complex Nightcliff Gardens Estate which resulted in damage to and thefts of vehicles and other property damage.

“A lot of cars have been stolen and a lot of property has been damaged,” he said.

“You can have the most secure complex in Darwin and people still manage to get in.

Security measures at 65 Progress Drive Nightcliff.

“The crocs teeth might look a little bit extreme but everybody is going through the crime wave at the moment and this is an outcome of that with people trying to mitigate the damage that’s being done.”

At Northside IGA in Alice Springs, concrete-filled cylindric bollards have been erected at the store’s exteriors in response to a series of bottle-shop ram raids in Alice Springs and Darwin in the past year.

A spokesman for Northside IGA said the bollards had been placed in front of the store to stop vehicles crashing into the premises.

A long-time Darwin auto-repair businessman who owns a workshop in Yarrawonga said he’d had enough of juveniles breaking into his premises and driving out through the front gate.

Speaking anonymously to the NT News on Monday, the businessman said he’d been broken into three times during Referendum weekend, with five vehicles stolen from the inside the workshop being driven through the front gate.