Major New CCTV Control Centre Planned in Brentford

Hounslow Council proposing to spend ££4 million on new monitoring hub

How Hounslow Council's command hub might look

Hounslow Council is proposing to spent nearly £5 million on a new centralised command and control hub in Brentford as well as an overhaul of CCTV and parking enforcement in the borough.

It will mean upgrading the borough CCTV network with new high definition cameras across housing estates, and parks, as well as the cameras used for traffic enforcement.

The Council says it will lead to reduced maintenance and operating costs and will be more effective at reducing crime and anti-social behaviour, as well as monitoring fly-tipping. They say it will lead to better management of traffic incidents and enforcement of traffic orders and legislation, and be an effective way of monitoring public disorder and identifying hotspot areas leading to better community safety.

Bringing the services currently located at four locations under one roof will require a total investment of £4.68m of which £2.55m will come from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and £2.125m from the general fund.

The new control hub will bring together trading and food standards; housing estate wardens
and police officers; neighbourhood enforcement; parks patrol; in-house police team;
private sector housing; community safety; and CCTV control and operation, at a newly refurbished centre at Trimmer Walk, Brentford. A total of 108 personnel will be based there.

The hub will operate seven days a week and the hours of operation will be extended from early mornings to evenings. The council said the new service will be more data driven - using data analysis better to help identify and target issues, trends and hot spots.

The report proposing the scheme states, "Cabinet and Members have been calling for a more visible regulatory and enforcement services, which is available out of office hours, is more responsive to community concerns, and uses data analysis better to provide an efficient and effective service working closely with our partners.

"At a time when public sector finances are increasingly tight, it is imperative that we explore ways to reduce demand for services. There is growing evidence, and practice, of the use of behaviour change approaches to reduce demand on services, especially enforcement and local environmental services, including littering, fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour."

It was originally thought parts of the enforcement service could operate from the new Civic Centre, to be called Hounslow House, which will be open in Spring 2019. However this is now thought to be impractical.

The cost of the refurbishment at Trimmer Walk is approximately £900,000 and will be funded from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). An annual rental charge will be levied on the service and payable to the HRA – and this would be offset to some extent by the annual rent of approximately £32,000 currently paid for Derby Road.

Cllr John Todd said, "We have learned that our current CCTV system,although recording the whole incident couldn't clearly record the index number of a car used in a £35,000 robbery yet we all know that any bus lane transgression even in the middle of the night is always successful.

"We're told "efficiencies and savings cannot be quantified", there's an outstanding "restructuring of the current services and staffing" which will take place after installation has started.

"There's no contemporary or projected data either."

Conservative councillors had been asking for an increase in mobile CCTV cameras to combat by way of example anti social behaviour, crime and fly tipping and related deterrent and enforcement. "Nothing to reassure" on those issues were forthcoming in the report, he said.

He added, " It's not clear why our contractor Hounslow Highways doesn't feature. They deal with the ongoing problems regarding fly tipping and some PCN litter offences too. My understanding was that there was to be a simplified enforcement process eliminating the current duplication. Whilst there was clearly a need to review this CCTV service the paucity of detail, benefits and evidence of value for money should make the Cabinet reject this scheme."

November 16, 2018