Western Daily Press (Saturday)
£1m high-security vaults hidden in office basement
AJAMES Bond-style vault has opened in the centre of Bristol which will store cash and family heirlooms belonging to people in and around the city. The facility, on Colston Avenue, is the first privately owned safe deposit box site in Bristol and cost a whopping £1m to build.
The Vaults Group, Europe’s largest private safe deposit box provider, is behind the purpose-built premises, from which gold bullion will also be sold. Built from scratch in the basement of an office building, the vaults are protected by cutting-edge security and state-of-the-art technology.
Bristol Vaults – as the facility is called – has hundreds of safe deposit boxes of various sizes, with capacity to expand to several thousand, which can be rented out. Sophisticated security systems, including seismic shock sensors, round-theclock monitoring and biometric identification technology make sure access to any box is limited to the authorised person only.
As well as cash and family heirlooms such as jewellery, the boxes can be used to store important documents such as title deeds, leases and wills, or items of sentimental value which are difficult or expensive to replace.
The Vaults Group said it chose Bristol for the site after receiving more than 400 advance enquiries – and has already attracted customers from a 30-mile radius around the city, with dozens of boxes snapped up by private customers and businesses. The facility is expected to employ up to 10 staff when at full capacity.
Interest is being driven by the rise of portable assets such as luxury watches and to store crypto-currency, according to the Vaults Group, which said vaults are increasingly being used by businesses concerned about the risk of hacking to store back-up data on memory sticks and computer hard drives. The company said it had also experienced a surge in sales of gold bullion, with particular interest in sovereigns featuring the head of Queen Elizabeth II.
Séamus Fahy, co-founder and chief executive of the Vaults Group
which owns and runs Bristol Vaults, said: “We’re looking forward to providing a much-needed service that will ultimately give peace of mind to people who require a safe haven for their valuable and irreplaceable possessions. Cost-cutting measures at high street banks means that secure storage has largely been phased out and so customers are left with nowhere to store their treasured items.”
The Vaults Group was established in 2013 by Mr Fahy and David Walsh after the duo spotted a gap in the market left by the closure of most bank safe deposit businesses. Made popular in public consciousness through films such as James Bond, and more recently the Bourne and Harry Potter franchises, the resurgence of safe deposit boxes has been spurred by rising rates of burglary and increasing home insurance premiums.
According to the Vaults Group, fears about the rate of inflation, world-wide economic volatility and, most recently, the falling value of the
pound has also created a rise in interest. Economic downturns tend to be accompanied by increases in unemployment and burglaries. In 2021-2022 there were 4,290 burglaries across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset, according to hyper-local police neighbourhood crime figures. This represents a rise of 5.7 per cent from the previous year, with only four per cent of offenders prosecuted for burglaries at residential property.
“Burglars have become much more sophisticated. They know about the use of ‘dummy’ safes, storage compartments behind false electric sockets and in false tinned food containers and these days they turn up with blockers to cut the signal on phone-linked alarms,” said Mr Fahy.
“But it’s not just fear of crime that’s driving interest.
“Uncertainties in the worldwide economy, currency volatility, inflation and loss of trust in the banking system all play a part. We’re seeing a large number of customers buy gold and then rent a box to store it in and
very recently, we’ve had a run on gold sovereigns from people who want a souvenir of the late Queen’s reign and believe they will appreciate in value over time.”
Mr Fahy said the company’s customer base is “extremely varied” – and is not just high-net-worth individuals.
“We have younger people wanting to store their crypto-currency and regularly converting their savings into gold, older people safeguarding their family heirlooms and increasingly, businesses choosing to store irreplaceable data,” he added.
Andrew W, a retired IT business analyst who lives in the city, was one of Bristol Vaults’ first customers. He decided to use a safe deposit box after he retired and started investing in tangible assets such as crypto-currency, gold and other valuable items.
“As the value of my collection grew, I became increasingly concerned about keeping them in the house and wanted a safe place to put them so was really relieved when Bristol Vaults opened,” he said.