A correspondence with David Renton who lives there has revealed a big argument raging on the Bemerton about whether to have CCTV and how to fund it. The history in complex but basically the residents are being asked to pay for CCTV to help combat problems arising from bad design of the estate, local drug addicts housed there and a restless element amongst the local youth, some of whom are into quite serious crime. The annual cost will be quite high for people who don’t have much money. Leaseholders will be stung for more than tenants.
Memorably described in the Guardian as a ‘vast high rise gulag‘ the Bemerton’s problems stem from a generation of underfunding, poor design and weak management. There has been huge improvement in the past three or four years as money has been poured into structural security modifications (simple things like locking doors) refurbishment and improved management. It seems fundamentallty unjust to me that the residents of very prosperous Thornhill Square should get free CCTV from the Council on Bridgeman Road. When at the same time residents only 50 yards away on one of London’s poorest and more troubled estates should be asked to pay.
The who pays argument has also spread into a ‘should we have CCTV, does it work, won’t it affect my privacy’ debate. Carefully managed CCTV on main routes can be effective (as anyone who lives in South Kings Cross will testify). And indeed a gang of kids threw a large lump of stone at my head unprovoked from about five yards away as i walked through the middle of the Bemerton this week so i would favour some sort of monitoring.
Would be interesting to hear people’s comments, particulalry if you live on the estate.
Kings Cross Environment 
After a huge investment in security gates at both the entrances to the Bemerton blocks and at each level within the blocks almost all anti-social behaviour such as graffiti, tagging etc has become negligible. HFI have not decided to wait a couple of years to see if the measures that have already been put in place have been effective, instead they have decided to plough on with a £1,000,000 pound CCTV scheme which will cost £170,000 a year to operate. It is not a question of whether or not CCTV is effective, it is a question of whether; firstly this huge amount of spending reflects the scale of the problem and secondly whether this money could be more effectively spent on a scheme which is positive for both the neighbourhood and the people who are perceived to be anti-social.
My suggestion is to survey how the recent improvements have effected the estate and then decide.
At the full Council meeting on 5th December, I presented the petition from residents on the estate protesting about the scale of cost involved in the latest plans from HFI to install CCTV.
Residents on the Bemerton have long sought a much more secure environment on the estate and, for almost 4 years, CCTV has been an assumed part of plans for improved security. However, the latest proposal – with over 100 cameras – is completely disproportionate to the need and is ridiculously expensive. I think the estate’s open areas justify a number of cameras – maybe half a dozen (max) at strategic locations overlooking the main routes across and around the estate.
The ward’s Safer Neighbourhood Panel has backed CCTV at several locations – at 2 spots on Cally Road and the south side of Bingfield Park (only one has been funded however) and I had assumed that these would complement some cameras around the estate.
Perhaps more significantly, the crime problem on the estate has improved – it’s still not a safe environment and there are still instances of prostitution and drug use being reported. The local police team are getting a grip on some of the anti social behaviour problems although there are regular occurences of aggressive and intimidatory behaviour by a gang of young people around the area.
Now that the extensive refurbishment work on the estate is finished and the estate security is in place (doors etc) and there is an improved management by BVMO, the need for CCTV on the estate has lessened. Certainly the estate does not need a CCTV scheme of such excessive scale as proposed by HFI and, even if it cost absolutely nothing, I think tenants and leaseholders would reasonably question its purpose. Considering how expensive it now appears to be, I fully support the objections by residents.
After the petition was presented, HFI has now assured me that a survey of all the residents on the estate will be carried out on the proposals, with different questions for the residents and this will be completed in mid-January. I am told the survey and covering letter clarify the estimated contribution for running costs for both tenants and leaseholders.
One complication is that part of the estate already has partial CCTV coverage and the new scheme involves upgrading this system and introducing new coverage elsewhere – so the costs are different depending on where a resident lives and if they are tenants or leaseholders. Sadly, I fear that HFI might try and disaggregate the results of the consultation and exploit any confusion about costs to claim there is no clear consensus.
HFI has said it will meet with BMVO to discuss the way forward following the consultation. I have asked for Councillors to be involved in the decision-taking process.
At the last meeting of the Safer Neighbourhood Panel I asked the police team to think about a “Plan B” for improving safety on the estate if residents decline the scheme currently proposed by HFI. It is possible that a more modest CCTV scheme could be introduced – or none at all. Either way, the police and HFI’s anti social behaviour team will need to figure-out some new solutions to the estate’s remaining problems.
In the previous post, I mentioned that HFI is undertaking a survey of residents seeking their views about the proposed CCTV on the estate. The committee of Bemerton Villages Management Organisation has now written to all residents disassociating themselves from the HFI survey that is now underway. This is a quite unusual step because BMVO (in their own words) is a tenants management organisation that “has always attempted to work closely with HFI in the past.”
BMVO says the survey does not ask the most fundamental question – whether residents support the CCTV proposal or not. The survey starts with a series of general questions about crime which are likely to bias responses towards a yes vote – without appreciating the costs. Further confusion is caused because residents in 8 of the 13 blocks are asked if they want to pay for the cameras but the other 5 are not (these are blocks which already have CCTV but will have to be pay more if integrated into the new estate-wide scheme). The BMVO also says the illustrative costs for leaseholders are less than previous estimates given by HFI and are not consistent with the global estimates given by tenderers.
BMVO says that, when “confronted with these criticisms and given an opportunity in good time to amend the survey to make it a more neutral and authoritative test of local opinion, HFI refused to change the scheme, and it was this refusal in particular, which forced us to disassociate ourselves from the survey.”
I have assured the BMVO that Councillors will only support safety solutions for the estate that are proportionate, cost effective and genuinely supported by residents.