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£600k to be spent on CCTV
9:01am Thursday 14th August 2008
Comments (1)Crime, antisocial behaviour and parking problems are to be tackled with a major cash injection into closed circuit television systems.
More than £600,000 will be spent on CCTV cameras and monitoring equipment after the funding was agreed on Friday.
New cameras will go up across the borough in Edgware, Colindale, Friern Barnet, Child’s Hill, Barnet and Temple Fortune.
As well as the prevention and detection of crime, they will be used, to monitor traffic flow and levels of parking, to identify broken street furniture or litter problems and to help in the case of a widespread emergency.
However, the investment plans, agreed by Barnet Council’s cabinet resources committee, could still be subject to review following criticism from opposition councillors.
The Labour group is concerned that some areas where CCTV is most needed have been left out of the plan and is asking for the decision to be referred back to the cabinet for reconsideration.
West Hendon will not benefit from the investment, despite having the 11th highest number of residential burglaries in London last year, at 16.86 per 1,000 people.
Julie Johnson, Labour councillor for West Hendon and spokeswoman for crime and community safety, said: “I was surprised West Hendon wasn’t on the list. Clearly there have been a lot of problems there, particularly on the Hyde estate, with burglary and antisocial behaviour, and I have asked for extra CCTV cameras in the past.
“I don’t dispute there’s a need in the wards that have been picked out, but if West Hendon has been left off, how many other wards might also have been? The way the wards have been assessed is very suspect.”
The council insists thorough research has been carried out to identify those areas where cameras are most needed.
A council spokesman said: “Before putting in CCTV, all areas are assessed, looking at crime levels, environmental issues and those raised by residents. The council looks to install CCTV where it will have the maximum long-term benefit, and the decisions on where to place the cameras were taken following a detailed analysis.
“The council has a mobile CCTV unit which is able to be deployed in areas where there is a problem with a particular issue.”
Superintendent David Tucker, of Barnet police, welcomed the investment.
He said: “When cameras are properly targeted they deter offenders, reduce the level of crime and increase the feeling of safety for those using our public spaces.
“The introduction of additional CCTV cameras in these streets in the borough will help police identify and bring to justice those concerned in crime. ”
The £609,000 cash boost will buy 16 new cameras as well as fund improvements to the council’s CCTV control room to the tune of £45,000 over four years.
But critics argue there is no evidence to suggest the cameras are effective in deterring criminals.
Gardi Vaswani, chairman of Barnet Green Party, said: “We give limited support to these cameras. But it raises all sorts of questions.
“Do they really prevent crime, or do they just push it into other areas? We have to look at the causes of crime, support our communities and have plenty of police on the streets in our town centres.”
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Doktor Jon, London says...
5:57pm Sat 16 Aug 08
In some respects we're rather fortunate here, in so far as the U.K. is the only country in the world, that is now moving into a third age of surveillance, with decades of experience of what does and doesn't work in terms of deploying CCTV.
Unfortunately for the ratepayers of Barnet, that knowledge and experience counts for nothing, as the local authority continues to stick hugely expensive and generally inefficient cameras on a pole, and then states that it "... looks to install CCTV where it will have the maximum long term benefit ...".
Now I may be missing something here, but unless Temple Fortune has suddenly become a hotbed of criminality, how come it is being chosen for special attention?; particularly as the stretch of Finchley Road concerned is possibly almost a mile in length, and quite capable of gobbling up all 16 cameras in this one 'Town Centre' alone.
Where most of £ 609,000 of our money is proposed to be spent on a tiny number of cameras operating along the principles of lottery surveillance, there is every reason for questions to be asked about whether this represents a sound investment.
Given that each individual CCTV camera is likely to cost in the order of £ 35,000, if I were a concerned councillor I would be very interested to find out just a wee bit more information about exactly what's going on.
For example, if the existing Town Centre CCTV schemes are intended to primarily act as a deterrent to crime, why are technically limited 'discreet' cameras being deployed, when higher performance and more visibly obvious units could be used with little if any cost penalty?
As there is an ever increasing demand on CCTV to provide Evidential Quality Recordings to assist with post incident investigations, why do the council continue to only deploy "active" CCTV systems which are far more expensive and far less efficient, than correctly configured "passive" systems?
For those councillors that are inclined to ask questions, perhaps they'd like to request detailed copies of the crime audits, risk assessment surveys and system profile documentation, that supports and explains the current proposed deployment of cameras, which to the trained eye currently looks suspiciously like a simple exercise of map penetration using small metal pins.
If the council were ever mindful to adopt a more flexible and inciteful approach to crime reduction using community based "Safety Net" type surveillance systems, instead of 16 remote control cameras, that same £ 564,000 could easily finance the deployment of hundreds of optimised passive CCTV cameras, that would prove far more effective at providing the local police with vital evidential recordings.
I know I shouldn't ask, but just how much is the current annual expenditure on operating costs and maintenance for CCTV throughout the borough? .... better make that a rhetorical question as I doubt we'll ever find out for sure .... although it would be interesting to know!
Jon
CCTV Advisor