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I'm a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth; this blog mainly covers that, sometimes general politics and policy and occasionally anything else that takes my fancy.
Tag Archives: CCTV
Environment, Culture and Community Safety OSC
Yet more democracy in action last night at the Environment, Culture and Community Safety OSC. I was there for the community safety and town centre parts of the meeting which come under my portfolio. In many ways it was a relatively straightforward meeting. There wasn’t anything particularly contentious on the agenda, although as the deficit
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Posted in Community Safety, partnership, Politics, Wandsworth
Also tagged domestic violence, failure, Leverson Street, Neighbourhood Watch, OSC, police, policing, town centres, white paper
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Defending CCTV
It’s becoming increasingly fashionable to knock the use of CCTV as if it is inherently evil. Bizarrely – since I would consider myself to be a strong supporter of civil liberties – I’ve found myself defending its use again and again. This is partly because they have concentrated on the number of cameras, rather than
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CCTV. Revisited.
Once again the issue of CCTV has raised it’s head. This time it is as a result of a ‘Big Brother Watch’ press release that, I believe, totally misses the real point. I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of sympathy for BBW (and don’t put that into Google at work). They are an offshoot
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Weekly wrap-up, 24 July
My usual end of week wrap-up of bits and pieces I want to highlight or didn’t post about at the time. Pre-summer council meeting Wednesday saw the council had it’s last full meeting before the summer recess. Of course, the council doesn’t take a holiday in the same way that Parliament does, but there’s a
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Posted in Weekly report
Also tagged civil liberties, Council, crime, election, Gordon Brown, police, public spending, recession, Shami Chakrabarti, Surgeries
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CCTV and civil liberties
Following up on last week’s post on CCTV my interview never made it into the final cut of the Newsnight feature. Although quotes from it made it into a BBC News online article and some of the associated radio coverage. Just the way the media cookie crumbles. However, I did get invited onto BBC Breakfast
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Posted in Community Safety, Politics
Also tagged BBC, Breakfast, Liberty, Newsnight, Shami Chakrabarti, TV
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Why Big Brother isn’t the problem with CCTV
At the end of last week I found myself at the top of Putney High Street doing an interview for Newsnight about CCTV. Following a series of freedom of information requests the BBC had discovered that Wandsworth had the highest absolute number of CCTV cameras of any local authority (although the Shetlands are the most
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St George’s new front gate
If you visit St George’s Hospital via the pedestrian entrance on Effort Street, SW17, you’ll have noticed that it’s been given a substantial facelift. What you probably didn’t realise is that it was done in conjunction with the council’s Community Safety Division. I popped down there this morning, along with Steve Jiggins, who helped design
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More CCTV success
The council’s published details of another success from the council’s CCTV network. This time one of the council’s CCTV operators spotted a man who had skipped bail while awaiting trial for burglary. Thanks to their keen eyesight police were able to arrest the man, who is now awaiting trial having had bail refused. You can
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CCTV success
The council’s website contains details of a success the Community Safety Division’s CCTV team had recently. The team had been monitoring a vehicle used as a getaway car in a robbery. They had already got footage of the robbery taking place, vital evidence in any future court case. However, when they noticed a group of
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