Residents call for ‘enhanced’ CCTV across borough’s housing estates

Camden tenants’ groups have made calls to the Town Hall for an “enhanced” CCTV service to be deployed across the borough’s housing estates.

Representatives from the borough’s District Management Committees (DMCs) were recently consulted on hikes to service charges.

The increases come against a background of rent reductions for council tenants put in place by central government in 2016, creating a challenging environment for the borough’s housing services.

The installation of the new service could be funded by a new weekly service charge of 98p for tenants, as other charges including for caretaking, communal lighting and maintenance are to be whacked up to make an annual gain for the Town Hall of over a quarter of a million pounds.

The recommendations are to be looked at by a Cabinet meeting of the council on 16 January.

A report by Cllr Meric Apak (Lab, Kentish Town), cabinet member for better homes, states: “Consultation with the District Management Committees (DMCs) has identified a desire for an enhanced CCTV service across the housing estates.

“A new CCTV system is being developed, with a high bandwidth wireless ring network. This would replace existing cameras with new state of the art CCTV cameras and the inclusion of ‘Rapidly Deployable Cameras’ that can be deployable strategically to cover high risk areas.”

Camden’s 2018 crime stats showed it had the third highest amount of crimes across London between March 2016 and March 2018, with 72,010 crimes recorded across the borough during the period.