Closing off a yard entrance without a gate
A swing arm barrier closes a 3m to 8m opening with three posts and a padlock. When it beats a gate, and what to measure before you order one.
Plenty of sites need an entrance shut at night and open all day, with nobody on the gate and not much traffic. A full gate is a lot of steel, a lot of groundwork and a lot of money for that. A swing arm barrier does the same job with three posts and a padlock.
What it is
A galvanised hollow box section arm that swings from a hanging post, drops into a locking post on the far side and padlocks shut. A third post — the open post — parks and secures the arm clear of the road while the entrance is in use, so it is not left swinging into the traffic space.
Swing arm barrier
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Arm lengths | 3m, 4m, 5m, 6m, 7m and 8m |
| Height | 1m above ground as standard |
| Construction | Hollow box section steel |
| Supplied with | Hanging post, locking post, open post and padlock |
| Mounting | Surface mounted or sunken |
| Weight | 95kg at 3m rising to 195kg at 8m |
| Finish | Galvanised, or galvanised and powder coated to order |
Swing arm barrier
When it beats a gate
- Low traffic volumes and no gatehouse — the barrier is opened once in the morning and closed once at night.
- The job is stopping vehicles, not people. An arm at 1m does nothing about someone walking under it.
- A wide opening. At 8m the arm is still one moving part; a gate that wide is a serious piece of engineering.
- No power, and no appetite for running any.
When it does not
If the boundary has to be secure against people as well as vehicles, an arm across the opening is the weakest point in an otherwise sound perimeter and everybody on site will know it. If the entrance is opened and closed a dozen times a day, a manual 195kg arm stops being charming by about week two. And if you need controlled access rather than a locked entrance, you are looking at a gate.
Measure the opening, not the road
Order on the clear opening you actually need to close. Arms come in whole metres from 3m to 8m, so measure the gap between where the hanging post and the locking post can realistically stand — kerbs, services, drainage and the swing arc all move those positions — and size from that, not from the width of the carriageway.
Weights climb quickly with length — 95kg at 3m to 195kg at 8m — so on the longer arms think about who is opening it, twice a day, in the rain.
Products in this article
Frequently asked questions
- What sizes do swing arm barriers come in?
Arms from 3m to 8m in whole metre steps, 1m above ground as standard, supplied with a hanging post, a locking post, an open post and a padlock.
- Do swing arm barriers stop pedestrians?
No. An arm at 1m above ground closes an entrance to vehicles only. Where the boundary has to be secure against people, it needs a gate and a fence line, not a barrier.
- Can a swing arm barrier be fitted without digging?
Yes — the posts can be surface mounted as well as sunken, so an existing slab or hardstanding can be used.