Issue - meetings

The Panel will receive a presentation from the Council’s CCTV Coordinator on the main current schemes in operation within Haringey, how they work and  their purpose and intended benefits.

Michael Pollak, the Council’s CCTV Coordinator and Sean Sweeny, the Police Projects Officer, gave a joint presentation on the main CCTV systems within the Borough and their contribution to community safety.

The Panel noted that CCTV had initially been introduced to the Borough in the 1990s through the CCTV Challenge process.  Wood Green and Tottenham high streets as well as two housing estates were covered by a total of 33 community safety cameras.  These were all monitored and recorded for 24 hours per day.  Relocatable systems were in place in Crouch End and Muswell Hill. These were situated near possible trouble spots.  In practice, the cameras were only partially relocatable.   These which were not entirely satisfactory as only one of the cameras that were in place in each location could be viewed at a time. 

There were a total of 11 parking enforcement cameras in place.  These were only used during the daytime or parking regulation hours.  Whilst these were not specifically community safety cameras, they were to be integrated into the community safety system shortly.  In addition, there were a 9 Transport for London cameras that were there to enforce parking regulations.

In addition, there were 9 mobile cameras that were operated by the Environment Service that were used to address environmental crime.  These had hard discs within the camera which could be reviewed by staff.  They were generally located within a particular hot spot for two weeks and used to gather evidence.

There were two other CCTV systems within the Borough that were significant.  There was a covert mobile system that was used to collect evidence in cases of anti social behaviour and had been successful in helping the closure of brothels and dealing with disruptive youths.  In addition, there was an overt van that had been used in a number of locations such as Tottenham Hotspur, Finsbury Park and around schools at the end of the school day. There were also systems that were controlled from outside the Borough such as ones that covered the main transport routes and smaller digital systems, some of which could be worn on the body. 

The CCTV control room could undertake work other then community safety for time-to-time, such as assisting with operations by the Environment Service and targeted operations with the Police such as Operation Blunt.  Management and coordination were undertaken by a CCTV Steering Group. In addition, there was a Tasking Group that was responsible for looking at how the cameras were used. 

The staff who worked in the Control Room were generally security guards and the current contract was with Reliance Security.  Re-tendering was currently being undertaken.  All operators had to be licensed.  The control room would shortly be moving to new premises.  This would enable community safety and parking control to be located within the same building, which would improve communication and facilitate the sharing of resources.  The control room had police radio so could hear and communicate with officers.  This allowed officers to direct cameras to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6