Hounslow Council To Spend Nearly £5M On CCTV Control Centre

Investment in Big Brother upgrade to help traffic enforcement and crime prevention

What the Hounslow Council command centre might look like

Hounslow Council is to spent nearly £5 million on a new centralised command and control hub as well as an overhaul of CCTV and parking enforcement in the borough. The proposal has been criticised by Chiswick councillor John Todd as being flawed and he says it should be rejected.

The plan will mean upgrading the CCTV network with new high definition cameras across housing estates, and parks, as well as the cameras used for traffic enforcement across the borough. It is believed there are nearly 600 CCTV cameras in council housing estates.

Cllr John Todd said the scheme should be rejected because while there was clearly a need to review the CCTV service, the paucity of detail, benefits, and lack of evidence of value for money given by the Council in its report were flaws.

The Council says that bringing the services under one roof at Trimmer Road, Brentford, will lead to reduced maintenance and operating costs and will be more effective at reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as monitoring fly-tipping

They say it will lead to more effective traffic management of traffic incidents and enforcement of traffic orders and legislation, and be an effective way of monitoring public disorder and identifying hotspot areas leading to better community safety. The total investment is £4.68m of which £2.55m will come from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and £2.125m from the general fund.

Cllr Todd said, "We have learned that our current CCTV system,although recording the whole incident couldn't clearly record the index number of a car used in a £35,000 robbery yet we all know that any bus lane transgression even in the middle of the night is always successful.

"We're told 'efficiencies and savings cannot be quantified', there's an outstanding 'restructuring of the current services and staffing' which will take place after installation has started. There's no contemporary or projected data either."

Conservative councillors had been asking for an increase in mobile CCTV cameras to combat by way of example anti social behaviour, crime and fly tipping and related deterrent and enforcement. "Nothing to reassure" on those issues were forthcoming in the report, he said.

He added, " It's not clear why our contractor Hounslow Highways doesn't feature. They deal with the ongoing problems regarding fly tipping and some PCN litter offences too. My understanding was that there was to be a simplified enforcement process eliminating the current duplication. Whilst there was clearly a need to review this CCTV service the paucity of detail, benefits and evidence of value for money should make the Cabinet reject this scheme."

The hub will operate seven days a week and the hours of operation will be extended from early mornings to evenings. The council said the new service will be more data driven- using data analysis better to help identify and target issues, trends and hot spots.

The report states, "Cabinet and Members have been calling for a more visible regulatory and enforcement services, which is available out of office hours, is more responsive to community concerns, and uses data analysis better to provide an efficient and effective service working closely with our partners.

"At a time when public sector finances are increasingly tight, it is imperative that we explore ways to reduce demand for services. There is growing evidence, and practice, of the use of behaviour change approaches to reduce demand on services, especially enforcement and local environmental services, including littering, fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour."

It was originally thought parts of the enforcement service could operate from the new Civic Centre, to be called Hounslow House, which will be open in Spring 2019. However this is now thought to be impractical.

The cost of the refurbishment at Trimmer Walk is approximately £900,000 and will be funded from the HRA. An annual rental charge will be levied on the service and payable to the HRA – and this would be offset to some extent by the annual rent of approximately £32,000 currently paid for Derby Road.


November 16, 2018