electric entrance gates

Electric gates are rarely a straightforward purchase. Cost, planning consent, safety compliance and the physical constraints of the entrance all interact, and the answer that suits one driveway is frequently wrong for the one next door. ElectriGate exists to shorten that process by putting property owners in direct contact with the independent fabricator covering their area, free of charge and with no obligation attached. It is not an installation company and does not employ fitters. Each enquiry goes to a gate maker who works from their own workshop, sets their own prices and carries out the work personally, so the person quoting is the person building.

The starting point for most enquiries is the shape of the entrance itself. Full driveway gate systems can be specified with video intercoms, keypads, remote fobs, vehicle detection loops and smartphone control, allowing access to be managed from inside the house or remotely. Businesses and properties with more complex requirements can extend this through dedicated gate access control equipment, which suits shared entrances, multi-occupancy sites and anywhere access needs to be granted to different people at different times.

Not every entrance can take a gate at all. Where consent is unlikely, or the geometry rules out both swing and slide, electric rising bollards provide a workable alternative, dropping flush with the ground when lowered and controlling vehicle access without any structure across the opening. Starting prices sit from around £4,800, and they are frequently the answer on frontages where a conventional gate would be refused.

Consent is worth resolving early. The planning permission guide sets out the rules plainly: under permitted development in England, a gate adjoining a highway used by vehicles may be no taller than one metre, which most driveway gates comfortably exceed. Listed buildings and properties in conservation areas require consent regardless of height. Establishing this before a design is settled avoids the expensive discovery that a fabricated gate cannot legally be hung.

Beyond that, the choice comes down to matching a design to the opening, and the electric gate range sets out how swing, sliding, cantilever and electric bi-folding gate configurations each perform. Swing gates need clearance behind the opening and reasonably level ground. Sliding and cantilever designs need run-back space along the boundary but no swing arc, which makes them the usual answer on wide, shallow or steeply rising entrances. Bi-folding gates fold back on themselves and suit openings where neither of the first two options quite works.

Fabrication and automatic gate installation are carried out by the same person, with all metalwork produced in-house rather than bought in. A survey establishes ground conditions, power supply, the condition of any existing pillars and whether consent is needed, and the quote is built from that rather than from a price list. Most residential jobs are completed in one to two days on site, extending to two or three where new pillars, trenching for cable runs or a full intercom system are involved. Safety devices are commissioned and tested to BS EN 12453 before handover.

Once fitted, annual automated gate servicing keeps the installation compliant as well as working. Safety edges, photocells and force limitation settings drift over time and need checking yearly, hinges and running gear need adjustment, and control equipment benefits from a firmware and battery check. A serviced gate lasts considerably longer than a neglected one, and the documentation matters if a claim or a query about compliance ever arises.

Coverage spans England, Scotland and Wales, with dedicated pages for eighty-nine towns and villages. Electric gates in Cambridgeshire are covered by a Boston-based fabricator with thirteen years in gate automation who also takes on structural steelwork, car ports and automated bollard systems across nineteen named locations. In the far north of England and beyond, the Scottish Borders fall under a central Scotland fabricator working from Musselburgh. Lincolnshire, Essex, the Lothians, Glasgow and the west, Fife and Forth Valley complete the current network, and enquiries from outside these regions are still worth submitting, as coverage extends further than the listed areas.

Enquiries need only a postcode, an approximate opening width, the type of gate under consideration and, ideally, a photograph of the entrance. The relevant fabricator makes contact within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

Services Provided by automatedelectricgates.co.uk at a Glance