Aiibu to ask why councils don't invest more in cctv

[shuggas]

Especially because since we had ours we have had countless calls from police asking for footage ( we Live next door to a train station) and obviously it helps for evidence. But when will they just get it sorted and fit their own it’s obviously the way forward.

I absolutely don’t mind but when they turn up and I am in my pjs no make up after a 5am start at work and long commute and would rather look a bit more normal there comes a point of wondering why they don’t just invest in their own on known hotspots?

I really don’t mind in one way but in the other I get police at my door at all hours, I have 3 children and a dog who insists on barking her head off when the door goes and I have sick kids in bed but I still feel a sense of duty

They dont have the money - Tories' austerity policy has decimated LG funding so have to prioritise spending

They don’t work that well actually. I’d be interested to know how ‘useful’ your footage actually is tbh.

Because councils currently have shoestring budgets!

Money money moneyyyyy we seriously need more of them where I live, it is beyond belief how dangerous it is becoming and how muh anxiety I have bieng in my local area, and when I attempted to write to them and tell them my views and have a conversation with them about it all, I was told it was not a current council priority and they would email me when it was considered more “essential”

Bearing in mind, it was only two days ago a 17yr old boy was shot in the head and killed 2 streets away from my house. And this is nothing new.

Much* oops.

@martellandginger You'd be surprised about the quality, I did jury duty earlier this year, and one of the cases involved two assaults on women. In both incidences CCTV footage from private residences was key evidence. In one the police had pieced together the man's walk along a stretch of road, and captured the moment he crossed paths with his victim, then turned to watch her, and started following her.

OP YANBU in saying they should invest in it, I suspect it's down to budget cuts though. Thank you for helping them even though I bet it's blooming annoying!!

Where I live the police don't have the resources to watch cctv unless the crime reaches a certain threshold (eg they won't view for theft) so having it isn't necessarily as useful as might be first thought

Where would they put it? Unless they cover the whole town the chance of one or two cameras picking up criminal activity is very small so it isn't cost effective.

But the UK already has more CCTV than most countries!

I'm often amazed at how poor the quality of cctv footage is, when you consider the cameras even basic phones have in people's pockets.

@kungfooeric a couple of things spring to mind -

HD or better cameras will be more expensive (and there would need a hell of a lot of storage) I'm guessing a lot of councils don't have the money to switch over.

CCTV cameras tend to be quite high up and you could be looking at images from a fair distance away.

Footage taken in low light conditions is probably always going to be noisy.

Because there isn't a statutory obligation for them to do so. When their budgets have been cut to the point they're barely performing their core services they're not going to throw money at something they don't need to.

Yeah I know it’s a money issue I guess, There really is good cctv out there, ours is great and has proved well in cases, it’s just such a shame that the police have to rely on us when a little investment may help the issue, I guess I would hope that word would get about and detour people, but I guess that hasn’t worked for us having cctv. It’s a minefield.. why can’t people just play nice

You'll find even if they did put a camera up they'll still come to you. The area I work in is almost all covered by cctv but the main problem is usually the camera isn't pointing where something has happened. Even if we do have it on public space cctv if it looks like there's possibly private cctv which may have also captured it it'll usually get checked too