Alarm monitoring and police response: Surrey Police
What police response to an alarm requires across the Surrey Police area, and who issues the URN.
How police response works in the Surrey Police area
Police response to security systems in England and Wales runs under national policy set by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, applied locally by each force. Response requires the system to be installed and maintained by an approved company, monitored by a certificated Alarm Receiving Centre, and to hold a Unique Reference Number issued by the force covering the address.
Surrey Police covers Surrey in our coverage, and 33 of the towns and cities listed on this site.
What you need before police response is possible
- A system installed and maintained by an NSI- or SSAIB-approved company
- Monitoring by an Alarm Receiving Centre certificated to BS EN 50518
- A police reference for the address, applied for by that approved company on your behalf
- Enough detector coverage to produce a confirmed activation — a single detector cannot
The authoritative source for this force’s own requirements and charges is its website: www.surrey.police.uk.
Questions about police response
Will the police respond to my burglar alarm?
Only if your alarm is professionally monitored and the property holds a valid Unique Reference Number (URN) issued by your local police force. The police do not respond to bells-only alarms, to self-monitored app alerts, or to systems without a URN — in those cases you are reporting a suspected crime yourself, like any other member of the public.
Police response to alarms in England and Wales runs under national policy set by the National Police Chiefs' Council, applied locally by each force. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalent arrangements.
The conditions are consistent in outline. The system must be installed and maintained by a company certificated by an approved inspectorate — in practice the NSI or SSAIB. It must be monitored by a certificated ARC. And the force must have issued a URN for that specific address.
Without a URN there is no police response to the alarm itself. That does not leave you helpless: if you have evidence of a crime in progress you can call the police directly, and they will respond on the basis of that report. But the alarm activation alone will not generate an attendance.
This is the single most misunderstood point in the category, and it is worth being blunt about it: buying a camera-based DIY system with an app does not get you police response, whatever the marketing implies.
What is a URN (Unique Reference Number)?
A URN is the reference a police force issues to a specific monitored alarm system at a specific address, which lets the Alarm Receiving Centre pass activations from that system to the police. It belongs to the address and the police force, not to you or your installer, and it can be suspended or withdrawn if the system generates too many false calls.
The URN is the mechanism by which the police agree, in advance, to treat signals from one particular system as worth acting on. It is issued by the force covering the address, against an application from an approved installer or ARC — you cannot apply for one directly.
Forces usually charge for issuing a URN and for its annual maintenance, and those fees are set locally, so they differ from force to force. Expect the cost to be passed through in your monitoring contract.
Crucially, a URN carries conditions. Excessive false activations can get it suspended, and continued problems can get it withdrawn, at which point police response stops until the system is fixed and the URN reinstated. Because the URN attaches to the address, a history of false alarms at a property can follow it.
If you move house, the URN does not come with you. A new address needs a new application.
How do I get a URN for my alarm?
You cannot apply yourself. An installer or Alarm Receiving Centre certificated by an approved inspectorate applies to your local police force on your behalf, once your system meets the required standard and is under a monitoring contract. The force issues the URN to the address, usually for a fee.
The practical route is: appoint an NSI- or SSAIB-approved installer, have the system installed or upgraded to the required standard with confirmed-activation capability, put a monitoring contract in place with a certificated ARC, and let them handle the application.
The system generally needs to be designed to reduce false alarms — in the UK that means the confirmation principles in BS 8243 — because forces will not accept systems that predictably generate unconfirmed calls.
Timescales vary by force and there is often a fee both to issue the URN and to maintain it annually. Ask your provider to itemise those police charges separately from their own, so you can see what you are paying for.
If your existing alarm was installed by a non-approved company or a previous owner, it may still be possible to bring it into scope: an approved company can inspect it, and either certify it as-is or specify what needs changing.
What happens if my alarm has too many false alarms?
Your police response can be suspended and eventually withdrawn. Forces operate a false-alarm allowance over a rolling twelve-month period, and once you exceed it the URN is suspended until the cause is fixed. The exact threshold and how it is applied are set by each force, not nationally.
The principle is national: police response is a finite resource and a system that cries wolf loses access to it. The numbers are local. Some forces publish their thresholds, some do not, and the way suspensions and reinstatements are handled differs, so the only reliable figure is the one your own force gives you.
A suspension is not usually permanent. The normal path is that the installer diagnoses and fixes the cause, demonstrates a clean period, and applies for reinstatement — sometimes with a further fee.
The causes are boringly consistent: user error, pets, poorly sited detectors, insects, unsecured doors and windows moving in draughts, and ageing sensors. Most are cheap to fix once identified, which is why it is worth reporting a false alarm honestly to your provider rather than resetting and hoping.
Because the URN attaches to the address, a bad false-alarm history is inherited by whoever occupies the property next.
Areas covered by Surrey Police
- Surrey 33
Towns and cities
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