A FORMER helicopter systems engineer has come up with an ingenious system for keeping marauding moggies penned in their own gardens \u2013 using wooden poles from a top North Wales timber company.<\/p>\n
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Award-winning Clifford Jones Timber, based in Ruthin, Denbighshire, supply a key component for Sussex-based Katzecure Ltd\u2019s patented containment fencing.<\/p>\n
The system is based on a series of rotating wooden poles which harmlessly prevent cats climbing out of their owners\u2019 gardens.<\/p>\n
Since the company was set up back in 2004, it has sold thousands of the systems across the UK and Europe.<\/p>\n
Founder Andrew Farmer reckons it has saved countless feline lives by stopping them wandering out onto busy roads or mixing with other cats and picking up potentially fatal diseases.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s now planning to make it even more readily available to pet lovers through local installers such as one in Wrexham which is due to go into operation soon.<\/p>\n
Andrew, 59, originally from Edgmond, near Newport in Shropshire, has a background in electronic engineering and used to design updates for complex radar systems fitted to Sea King helicopters for the UK armed forces.<\/p>\n
He came up with his Katzecure system about 12 years ago, ironically to stop cats coming into his own garden rather escaping from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were coming into my garden and leaving behind a mess which I would then have to clean up,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was then I had the idea of a containment system of keeping cats in their own gardens based on a system of wooden poles fixed to the top of existing fencing or walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cCats can climb up the fencing but once they reach the poles they can\u2019t get any further because when they try to grip the poles they just keep going round and round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s harmless and humane for the cats because it doesn\u2019t rely on sharp metal products, netting or electric collars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also designed to blend in nicely with your garden surroundings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew opted to have the key 75mm diameter wooden poles supplied exclusively by Clifford Jones Timber because of the company\u2019s high reputation.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThey are a good, reliable company and they supply timber from British Forestry Commission land, sourced and manufactured locally which is something I insist on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the other parts for the system are also locally sourced, with both the metal brackets for holding the poles and the plastic end caps, which stop prying little paws getting into the mechanism, coming from craftsmen in Worthing, near our base in the Horsham area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing else like the Katzecure system on the market at the moment and I\u2019ve had it patented.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we started we\u2019ve supplied literally thousands of the systems all over the UK, from the tip of Cornwall, through places like Anglesey in Wales and all the way up to Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re also selling it in Europe and I have an official local distributor in Holland.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can either ask us to come out and install the system for them after we carry out a survey or they can buy the parts from us on a DIY basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we\u2019re currently looking at selling it through supply partners such as DIY stores or fencing yards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alan Jones, from Llwyn Einion, near Wrexham,Chairman of Clifford Jones Timber, said: \u201cAndrew\u2019s system is very ingenious and it works very well \u2013 he\u2019s got thousands of satisfied customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people might think that we make a fairly basic product. We\u2019re the UK\u2019s biggest producer of fence posts but we pride ourselves on our versatility and we have a wide variety of customers for our products though perhaps a cat security system company is one of the more unusual.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re delighted that Andrew has found a new use for our wooden poles though and there\u2019s nothing more eco-friendly than timber.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clifford Jones Timber have 64 staff at Ruthin where, as well as four million round timber fence posts, they produce gates, laminated timber for the construction and outdoor play industries and dried logs and wood briquettes.<\/p>\n
They use timber from forests all over the UK and also have a second site at Gretna in Scotland where they employ a further ten staff.<\/p>\n
They send their fence posts as far afield as the Falkland Islands while other clients for their timber products have included Center Parcs, a luxury treehouse builder, award-winning vineyards and a deck-chair company.<\/p>\n
Alan Jones, whose father founded the company in 1948, said: \u201cEvery piece of timber that comes through these gates is used. There isn\u2019t any wasted and there aren\u2019t many industries that can say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katzecure Ltd currently has a team of six expert installers and Andrew said he was in the process of appointing a local representative based in Wrexham.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe system is tailor-made to the requirements of individual customers and is very effective at providing a safe haven for cats in their own gardens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, if we get a particular Houdini of a moggy who manages to get through it we\u2019ll go back out there and make the necessary adjustments.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome cats just love to wander and can either get out onto the road where they can be knocked down or can pick up diseases which can be fatal to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reckon over the years we\u2019ve been fitting our system we must have helped to save the lives of quite a few cats.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I\u2019ve had them in the past I haven\u2019t currently got a cat myself but I do have a dog, a King Charles cavalier spaniel called Ronnie Barker, who I don\u2019t have to worry about getting out of my garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, he comes with me as I travel around the country on surveys he is both a good travel companion and a great guard dog for the car and has even got his own passport for when I have to go to Europe!\u201d<\/p>\n