As for the question, where is public realm CCTV going next, the question really is, where is the money coming from? writes Mark Rowe.
A swing to the Reform Party in shire counties at the May 1 local elections showed some voter dissatisfaction, whether at the pot-holed state of roads or poor services generally. Having come through years of public sector austerity in the 2010s, and facing (like police forces) a squeeze on budgets for the foreseeable future, public space CCTV – not a mandatory service, whereas councils do have to empty the bins and maintain the roads – could be a target for cuts.
Some five rounds of the Safer Streets Fund by the Home Office, begun under Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020, funnelled central government money to councils, and police and crime commissioners (PCCs), and went on crime prevention including new surveillance kit. The round five money is still being felt; for example in Leicestershire, the Conservative PCC Rupert Matthews recently hailed round five that went on, among other things, ten re-deployable CCTV cameras for attaching to up to 60 lamp posts in high-risk crime areas in Oadby and Wigston, outside Leicester; deployed as decided by police and council community safety staff. Similarly in Melton, echoing similar installs in Nottinghamshire under a Labour PCC, help points from WCCTV were funded that enable a person in distress to communicate a the police or council CCTV control room; and three new CCTV cameras and four fly-tipping cameras were funded to tackle environmental crime.
Mr Matthews said of the work in Melton: “Through Safer Streets, we have shown the powerful impact of working together to solve problems and I have no doubt that the relationships we have fostered during the Safer Streets journey will continue to serve us well beyond the scope of this project.”
However round five came to and end with the 2024-25 financial year in March, and no more has been heard about whether the Home Office will run a round six; which had been the first central government grants towards renewal of equipment since many councils’ original spend on kit, in the analogue era of CCTV in the later 1990s and early 2000s, under the Conservatives and then Labour. As that suggests, spend on public realm CCTV or indeed whether to do away with it at local level need not be a party-political affair; it remains to be seen what Reform as a new force in local government will do about community safety.
Waste crime
One way that CCTV control rooms can justify their budget and indeed very existence for some years has been in response to waste crime, for two reasons. Across the country, whether in cities or countryside, fly-tipping is cited as a visible blight by residents and voters; and one of the few options for going after the criminals who dump waste, typically on waste land out of sight, is to use covert, readily deployable CCTV.
Funding
A solar-powered camera was funded through Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s Environmental Crime Unit, with a contribution from ward councillor Dave Evans. The unit is considering installing further such cameras. In east London, the borough of Havering’s £3m spend on renewing its CCTV, such as a new control room in Romford Town Hall, has included more re-deployable environmental cameras against fly-tippers. As for the funding, most has come from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and the remainder coming from the Community infrastructure Levy (CIL, a charge on new developments planned in the district) and the General Fund. In Hertfordshire, Three Rivers district councillors agreed £76,716 for new cameras funded by the CIL, at South Oxhey, Carpenders Park, Leavesden and Mill End.
More on response to waste crime on this link.
Photo by Mark Rowe: anti-fly-tipping signage near Salisbury, including a warning of CCTV surveillance.
