Clippings (Aug-Oct 2001)Clippings (Aug-Oct 2001)My fears over the all-seeing eye (T&A, 28 August 2001)
£823,400 CCTV scheme for flats (T&A, 21 Aug 2001)
Cut car crime rate, parking bosses told (T&A, 21 Aug 2001)
T&A, 21 Aug 2001
Residents of high rise flats in Bradford are to gain protection from new closed-circuit television systems, it was announced today.
The investment has been made possible by a £823,400 grant from the Home Office Crime Reduction Fund.
The state-of-the-art digitalised CCTV system is a first for the district. It will cover 11 high rise blocks in Manchester Road and five in Otley Road.
The money is on top of £1 million from the same source, for Bradford city centre and £760,000 announced in April for schemes in Little Germany, the Trident regeneration zone around Manchester Road and Royds.
The funding bid was made by the Bradford District Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership.
"I am delighted that tenants in these flats will have the advantage of this very latest technology in the fight against crime," said Councillor Richard Wightman, deputy leader of Bradford Council.
Cameras covering the outside of the 16 blocks of flats will be linked to a concierge system, which will oversee a secure entry to the homes from two control rooms staffed round the clock.
by Claire Lomax, T&A, 21 Aug 2001
A business leader is lobbying a national car park company in a bid to reduce the levels of crime at its city centre car park.
Tim Hindley, chief executive of Bradford Breakthrough, has written to bosses at NCP after board members of the public and private sector partnership, voiced concerns about crime at its Hall Ings car park.
In June this year police figures showed the car park topped Bradford's car crime league.
"Board members asked me to write to NCP to find out what it was doing about it," said Mr Hindley.
"The response is a positive one provided it carries out what it says it will. I will be monitoring that by keeping in touch with NCP.
"It wants to improve the situation and realises it is not satisfactory."
NCP bosses have blamed increasing car crime at Hall Ings on the closure of the Council's Vicar Lane car park and say a number of steps have been undertaken already to tackle the problem.
These include increasing the number of patrols and moving the supervisor to the front office to act as a deterrent to would-be thieves. There are CCTV monitors in the supervisor's office and kiosk.
Mr Hindley has also been promised NCP will continue to review security measures and the firm says it is looking at securing the pedestrian entry/exit in the evening and creating a footpath via the main entry and more covert operations by the security department.
"It is vitally important to have secure car parking, for the business community and investors to be able to visit Bradford," said Mr Hindley.
"And for visitor attractions like the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television it is vital to get people into the city and if we are going to bid for things like the European Capital of Culture, it is vital people feel safe in the city and in this instance that their cars will be safe."
Mr Hindley is supported by other business organisations in the city.
Mike Cartwright, policy officer for Bradford Chamber of Commerce said: "We work closely with Tim Hindley on a number of different issues and anything that can be done to reduce crime and disorder and increase security will all hopefully bring more and more people to Bradford.
Alison Formolli, security controller for NCP, said the company had increased patrols, was improving CCTV coverage and had moved supervisor offices to act as a deterrent. She added lighting would also be improved.
by Mike Priestley, T&A, 28 August 2001
Like a lot of people, I find the idea of being constantly under the gaze of closed-circuit television cameras rather creepy.
So I have very mixed feelings about the plan to install thousands more of them across the country at a cost of £79 million.
Wherever you are - in the centre of a city, town or village, on the bus or train, in a hospital or shop, even at a beauty spot in the country - there could be a lens looking down on you and recording your movements. So be on your best behaviour.
Apparently there are now about 2.5 million surveillence cameras in the UK. In a large city, you could be captured on film as many as 300 times a day. Forget about privacy. You’re being observed by secret cameras more often than a major celebrity on a holiday island.
The case in favour of these cameras is a good one. There’s no challenging that. It was pictures captured on a CCTV camera that led to the arrest of Jamie Bulger’s killers and to the Soho pub bomber. It’s the deterrent effect of cameras that protects people from attack and robbery when they walk in quiet places. In areas where a lot of elderly people live, they reduce the fear of crime that can cause so much distress.
You can’t argue against those positive effects of surveillence cameras, which is why people say of them that you’ve nothing to worry about if you’re not doing anything wrong.
But I do worry about them. They make me feel awkward. Standing in a queue at the bank, walking through a shopping mall, waiting at a station, buying petrol….I find myself looking around for the all-seeing eye. I wonder who’s watching me, or who’s likely to watch me when the tape’s played back.
And I wonder, too, if they’re listening to any conversation I might be having. After all, if cameras can pick up every details of what we’re doing, why can’t microphones pick up every word we say? That might not be happening now. But there’s no doubt it will happen in the future.
The big concern about this expansion of Big Brother watchfulness is that there’s no knowing where it will stop. Orwell’s novel 1984 has people being spied on by the authorities in their own homes. That, I’m sure, is a long way down the road. But the road is leading in that direction.
CCTV cameras are a good thing if their use is kept under control. But like so many other things that are designed to benefit society, they are open to abuse.
If we’re going to have more of them, they need to be very tightly controlled to ensure that they are used for the benefit of ordinary people, to free them from fear rather than to enslave them.
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