Moseley Village CCTV

[barnardhobbit]

Link to Moseley Forum Website

Locations of cameras (Opens a word Document)

We may have beaten the Spy Cameras in Muslim areas, but the surveillance state marches ever onwards.

The Safer Birmingham Partnership is at it AGAIN! They have offered £100,000 to pay for CCTV
cameras in Moseley Village centre.

There is a gap in CCTV surveillance between Balsall Heath and Kings Heath that the police want filled,
to give them continuous surveillance along the 50 bus route.

It has nothing to do with crime or antisocial behaviour in Moseley.

Moseley village is a clean, safe, sought-after location with a very low crime rate. Cameras do not reduce or solve crime.

We are told these cameras will offer 'reassurance' to the public, because many people say they 'feel' safer.

I feel that while they are spending £100,000 plus £17,500 a year running costs and its likely that
several mature street trees may have to be cut down or be heavily cut back to make them able
to see anywhere near what they claim.

It is also very likely that Street Lighting in side streets will be tuned off or dimmed at night to Save Money

What would you rather have a few cameras in the High Street or trees and street lighting on your way home ?

[Daz]

Thanks Barnard.

I am very worried about this. I know the Community Safety Partnership is putting up the initial costs but they will not be able to continue funding the operational costs in the future. This will mean that we will need to find the funding to keep these going. As our ward and constituency budgets get slashed this funding will come from existing programmes like the Street Wardens.

The nonsense of taking money from a project that has proven results to fund something that has been proven the world over to have little or no tangible effect on overall crime levels is nothing but a shameless election ploy.

I'm also very concerned about the claims in relation to the car park. We know that CCTV can displace crime. This means that car crime could be displaced from the car park into surrounding residential streets.

I don't want my car broken into as a direct result of putting in a CCTV scheme.

If you can't attend the meeting then there is Questionnaire online on the Hall Green page. Please take the time to complete it.

[barnardhobbit]

The Safer Birmingham Partnership (SBP) may well not exist in six months time it is a offshoot
of Be Birmingham the local Strategic Partnership that is entirely dependent on the Working
Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF)

The Working Neighbourhoods Fund itself comes to an end in March 2011 and so will the £40 Million
Be Birmingham receives every year from the fund, coupled with the £330 million savings the city
council has to make in it's budget over the next four years things are not looking rosy for either.

With calls for the head of Jackie Russell the director of the Safer Birmingham Partnership at the Full
Council meeting earlier this month over her role in the Project Champion fiasco the days of the SBP
could well be over.

The £100,000 that SBP is supplying has to be spent by March or the money will be lost but it does not
end there as the running costs of these five cameras is £17,500 pa and allowing for inflation at say
2½% over 15 years the true cost of these five cameras is well over £400,000

[Geoff]

I agree with above. The Safer Bham Partnership is just a quango trying to justify its existence by installing CCTV cameras that are unnecessary and have, according to all the studies I've read recently, virtually no effect on crime prevention. They are doing this by trying to convince residents they are not 'safe' and that Moseley is a dangerous place to live. Nonsense. Our Councillors should be ashamed of themselves for going along with this deceit.

[barnardhobbit]

The public consultation meeting is tonight Wednesday 24th November at 7:30pm at the
Moseley Exchange Moseley CDT (Behind Post Office) 149-153 Alcester Road Moseley B13

[Daz]

The meeting turned out to be quite interesting.

It seems that the sole reasoning behind this plan is that the Moseley Business Association feel that it will have some affect on crime in Moseley. Their representative admitted that they don't have any evidence that this would be the case, in fact he said that he didn't believe in the vast amount of evidence to the contrary.

I feel that handing out free hats to people will reduce crime, it won't but why shouldn't we just give it a go and see how it goes?

The most interesting people there were the Police. I've never seen anyone go out of their way to say so little whilst on a public platform. The only thing the Police representative made clear was that they didn't ask for the scheme. I suppose that is probably because of recent local CCTV events. They've probably had enough of this for one year.

One question asked of the Police did evoke a curious response. Someone asked about how much crime dropped in Kings Heath after their CCTV scheme had been implemented. Apparently the Police have no idea because nobody has ever asked them that before. Doesn't that seem odd? Wouldn't that be the first thing you try and measure? It does make you ask what they have been measuring.

One thing that wasn't clarified was how come we are only allowed to have two weeks consultation. The representative of Safer Birmingham admitted that funds are allocated annually thus in this financial year the decision to make funds available has taken seven months. I don't believe this.

I think that they weren't allowed to begin consultation until the Project Champion debacle had been resolved. Thus an issue characterised by borderline negligent consultation has caused the knock on effect that we now have borderline negligent consultation.

The one thing I would have hoped that Safer Birmingham have learnt this year is the importance of consultation in relation to their potential legal liability. It seems they haven't.

I think it is fair to say that any decision in relation to Moseley CCTV is ripe for judicial review.

[Geoff]

I was shocked to hear that some mature trees may need to come down to allow uniterrupted camera sightlines. It wasn't disputed by the proponents, so I guess it's true. Disgraceful.

[barnardhobbit]

He is my view that I have just written unaware that DAZ had already posted his view

Both accounts are very similar

The meeting on Wednesday was a bit of farce with Mark Eftichou chair of the
Moseley Business Association and other traders argued that cameras are needed
to protect their business from shoplifting and burglary and to save them having
to spend money on their own security and in-house CCTV systems.

Although I can not picture anyone is likely to be running down the road with
a washing machine, dish washer or fringe/freezer under their arm.

Inspector Jon Lighton of the West Midlands Police said public space CCTV can
be useful to the police, but could offer no evidence that the cost can justify
the effectiveness of them, I got the impression that he could did not care
either way whether they are installed or not.

Colin Murphy of the Safer Birmingham Partnership wanted to press home that if
the Money was not spent by the 31st of March next year that Moseley will loose
all chance of any SBP money again.

Although he would not agree that there would be a public burning of the £100,000
if it was not spent or the money would return to the city coffers to be spent on
something else like the Moseley Street Wardens.

Although the sum of £100,000 kept be banded unless the cameras are only to be
there for a year the true cost over 5 years would be £200,00, 10 years £300,000
and 15 years £400,000 these figures were accepted by the audience.

Steve Jolly and Keith Keith Marsden Lessee of the Prince of Wales and Chair of
Moseley and Kings Heath Pubwatch argued that that where not needed due to
in Steve's they are not effective or in Keith's view the level of crime in Moseley
did not justify there use and that most shops and pubs had their own CCTV.

When pointed out that for this scheme to be of any use as claimed that several
trees may have to felled or massively cut back the response was that if that was
the case the scheme would be changed, which makes one wonder what we were
actually being consulted about as there does not seem to be a fully thought out
or documented Business Case.

The audience and those members of the public that spoke seem to be divided into
two camps with those with business being in favour and those of the general public
against.

This consultation closes in just over a weeks time on the 5th December the team
from the Constituency will at tomorrows Farmers Market where you will have the
chance to complete the questionnaires.

[barnardhobbit]

Is this the beginning of the end of the Safer Birmingham Partnership ?

SEE Axe falls on Birmingham ASBO unit

[barnardhobbit]

Post Deleted Youtube video removed