Protecting Government - British Embassy Washington DC

The British Embassy Washington maintains and develops relations between the UK and the United States. The British Government has had representation in Washington DC since 1791 and is the largest British Embassy in the world receiving between 12- 14,000 visitors every year to the Embassy and Residence. 

 

Employing around 500 people from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as 7 other British Consulates across USA, it also supports other Government Departments based in Whitehall, including the Ministry of Defence (MoD) building in London where Cova also have a hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) product installed. 

With ramming attacks, terrorism and firearm crime dominating the USA headlines Cova were contacted directly by the FCO Services worldwide team who were looking to install a robust HVM traffic management system, with two protected vehicle locks to both the entry and exit areas of their esteemed building. The two new sally ports needed to a separate electrical control system that was required to integrate with the existing US power supply. Another important requirement was to retain the original decorative gates which are a historic feature, whilst still providing a high level security solution. 

 

Having failed to source a similar high quality HVM solution in the USA, Cova were the first and only choice to be appointed to undertake the upgrade of the Embassy security gates due to our 35 years experience providing perimeter solutions to government buildings all round the world. 

“With a heightened threat from terrorism, and lone shooters not uncommon in the US, the new gates are a significant improvement to the security of our most important bilateral embassy.” 

 

“The bi-fold anti ram gates manufactured and installed by Cova are a first class product. We were unable to find anything close to this specification here in the US. Cova’s installation engineer did a first rate job and ensured everything was set up and robustly tested before leaving site.” 

 

“The project was well managed and as well as the obvious benefits of increased security they (Cova) have removed the concerns that we had around maintaining the previous system. The communications to staff throughout the project were excellent and received positive feedback from our customers.”