SECURITY at a Hampshire building site has been stepped up again after a second incident in which reckless teenagers risked their lives to scale a 100ft crane.

Police were called to Centenary Quay in Woolston, Southampton, after five youngsters were seen climbing the huge crane and walking along its horizontal jib.

The teenagers came down when officers arrived and they were allowed to leave after being warned about the dangers of the craze known as “urban climbing”.

It follows a similar incident last month in youngsters aged between 14 and 17 scaled the crane after clambering over hoardings around the site.

Josh Reade, 26, who witnessed the events, told the Echo shortly afterwards: “If one of them had fallen it would have been instant death.”

The latest drama was photographed by Jeremy Sargent, 41, of Woolston, who said: “Following the first incident we were assured that security would be increased to prevent it happening again.

“But five or six teenagers managed to get past whatever new measures were put in place.

“When the police arrived the youngsters came down of their own accord and were given a good talking to.

“My reaction when I saw them climbing the crane was one of disbelief.

“It was a stupid act to say the least.”

The site is run by Crest Nicholson, which has embarked on a £500 million project to build 1,600 homes on the former Vosper Thornycroft yard.

Last night a spokesman for the developers said: “We take safety and security very seriously and we are extremely concerned by the increasing appetite for this perilous craze.

“For the past two months we have been working closely with local police to enhance on-site security, which is well beyond industry standards.”

The spokesman said the company had further secured all the hoardings, installed anti-climb devices across the whole site and the introduced regular evening security patrols.

He added that the crane itself was also surrounded by security devices.

“Regrettably, despite all these measures, a small number of determined trespassers have managed to break into the site,” said the spokesman.

“We continue to maintain a regular dialogue with police to combat the wider issue of ‘urban climbing’ across Southampton and have again tightened our security measures to go above and beyond in order to stop this worrying trend.”

A police confirmed that officers were called to Centenary Quay last Sunday.

He added: “We had a report of five youths on a crane at a building site. Officers attended and gave advice. There were no arrests.”