In February 2001, Professional Security reported on use of a cable-less IP (internet protocol) ethernet network CCTV system, using VCL cameras, by a project in Hull. A year on, the security manager tells how community wardens are complementing the technology.
The Goodwin community project in Hull has attracted a pot of ล10m to expand its CCTV system from the Thornton housing estate across the city, reports project manager John Marshall. Goodwin are drawing up their proposals about how to achieve that. On the CCTV side of the project – that allows the project managers to move cameras to combat shifting prostitution, drug misuse and crime – Goodwin have continued to test products and develop software. John Marshall says that the team of six wardens on the Thornton estate have been very successful, on several fronts:
– crime prevention (offering personal attack alarms and property marking equipment such as pens, and loaning alarms and CCTV; visiting victims of crime; and patrolling)
– environmental issues (collecting used drugs needles, tackling litter)
– and social services (from helping to fill in forms to escorting a bingo winner home with her winnings if she fears a mugging).
Twenty more wardens have joined and gone through seven weeks? training – a very long programme for wardens, but needed because their roles are so broad, John said. ?They complement each other. CCTV often ring up the wardens and the wardens ring up the CCTV. It works very well.? He agreed that warden uniforms have to be distinctive – the Goodwin one is red jacket and shirt and functional black trousers (with for example a pocket for kit such as a mobile phone). Day to day manager of the wardens is a former Humberside police inspector Roger Booth; his team includes an ethnic inclusion warden, because Hull has many asylum-seekers.
Some 16 Hull wardens are the first to take to the streets as part of a ล50m programme, the latest stage of the Government?s neighbourhood wardens scheme. The Hull wardens, who patrol the Hessle Road and Springbank parts of the city, are managed by John Marshall of the Goodwin Resource Centre, the community organisation whose pioneering VCL CCTV system was featured in our February 2001 edition.
