Barnet Council invests £2.3 million on CCTV network upgrade

The launch of the new Control Room is a key milestone in Barnet’s strategic CCTV improvement programme and, indeed, part of Barnet Council’s wider community safety strategy, which sees the latter working closely with the police service and other organisations to tackle crime, violence against women and girls and anti-social behaviour.

The improvements will also significantly increase the number of images and coverage in the London Borough from 127 to upwards of 800.

This is the latest in a raft of community safety initiatives that have included regular community safety hubs and ‘ward walks’ across the London Borough as well as the new ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ programme, which has already led to over 160 arrests within two months on Colindale’s Grahame Park Estate.

Community safety

Councillor Sara Conway, Barnet’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Participation, explained: “Community safety is one of our top priorities and we’re delivering on that by investing far more in CCTV than ever before to transform the service. Over the last year, we’ve invested £2.3 million in upgrading, expanding and improving our CCTV network.”

Conway continued: “We’ve launched a new state-of-the-art system which will deliver over 800 high-quality images from over 200 locations and a 24-hour monitoring service located in the Borough to help keep residents safe.”

Part of Barnet’s community safety strategy includes improved collaboration with the police service and partners in the community in order to realise greater levels of safety for the London Borough’s neighbourhoods.

Barnet neighbourhood superintendent Lorraine Busby-McVey stated: “Having high-quality and modern CCTV cameras in an area helps us to positively identify criminals who are caught in the act of committing offences. The more offenders we catch, the more others will want to avoid the risk of being caught. The footage can also be stored for long periods and is used as evidence in court to help convict offenders.”

Further, Busby-McVey stated: “I’m delighted that we have such good quality CCTV available in Barnet and I know that this will reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in this area and help residents, visitors and commuters feel safer.”

Training of operators

CCTV operators will be trained to watch out for crime as well as for vulnerable people and report any episodes to the relevant Emergency Services.

The new cameras also allow for proactive as well as reactive community safety work as part of the system includes re-deployable cameras. These cameras are not fixed and can therefore be moved into temporary positions for days, weeks or even months at a time, in turn meaning that Barnet Council can react to issues in specific areas and monitor them.