Tag: Railway Village

I don’t usually post just to link to other blogs, but this photograph from Rotund Pictures of the Railway Village and former railway works is as dramatic a view of the area as you’ll ever see. (It’s been produced with some photo-manipulation, but is impressive nonetheless.) It makes a change from the significantly less impressive view down at street level.

The comments from Mr Renard on the arrival (after a summer trial) of talking cctv cameras in the Railway Village are not the most ecstatic endorsement.

The residents of the Railway Village told us there were problems there. That’s why this is going in there. When we told them we had these mobile cameras which talked to people, the residents were keen. The police certainly find them very useful in gathering evidence for bringing people to book. There is a question about if the cameras just move people from one area to another. But what they do is allow us to identify perpetrators of crime and work with the police to deal with them. I feel that they will make a difference. The mobile camera in Welcombe Avenue produced results, there’s nothing to think these won’t.

It may not be significant expenditure at only £15,000, but I’m sure I’ve heard councillors condemn similarly priced spending plans with stronger cases than that.

It’s amazing how much effort some people put in to their Hallowe’en decorations. It’s certainly brightened the Railway Village for the last few days.

There is, methinks, a little too much excitement about what talking CCTV cameras (more accurately, CCTV cameras with loudspeakers connected to a control centre, from which warnings and announcements can be given) might achieve in the Railway Village. For starters, it is just a demonstration of the technology tomorrow: the cameras are to be trialled in Penhill, not the Railway Village, and only if successful there will they be tried elsewhere. The council does have a mobile but silent CCTV camera (trialled in Park North) and is buying three more. That will not go far, even in the straight roads of the Railway Village. Even if talking CCTV was installed, it won’t have much effect on the anti-social behaviour many have in mind. CCTV is proven* to be effective for premeditated crime, not* for spur-of-the-moment violence. It may stop some of the drug dealing, but it’ll do little for the behaviour of drunks on the way home after a Friday night of binge drinking.

* Link is to a pdf document.