Recent CCTV installations have covered parks, walkways and schools. These include cameras at Angel Walk and Jubilee Park, both in Edmonton, and cameras outside St. Ignatius School near Turkey Street as well as at both ends of the A10 pedestrian subway. Four cameras are set to be installed within Durants Park.All these cameras will link back to Enfield Council’s award winning Public Safety Centre. This state-of-the-art facility has more than 1,000 cameras connected to its network which are monitored 24 hours a day to deter criminals, help police catch offenders and gather evidence for prosecutions.
Elsewhere, many schools have had community safety / traffic enforcement cameras erected to protect pupils going to and from school. These will be particularly useful to deter people from parking on zigzag lines and in other restricted areas at the start and end of the school day. Outside of these times, the cameras will be used for community safety purposes.
Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Cllr Nneka Keazor, said: “We are committed to reducing crime and anti-social behaviour and making Enfield safer. We listen to residents’ concerns and liaise with councillors to help improve the quality of life for local people. We take swift and decisive action in areas of concern and have a very good relationship with local partners including the police.
“These cameras give us the opportunity to react rapidly to emerging issues and will help us and the police to act quickly and decisively to gather evidence and identify perpetrators of crimes, anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping and other violations.”
The locations of the new community safety camera schemes are determined from reported crime and anti-social behaviour levels. Data and information are collated from the Partnership Problem Solving Group – a multi-agency partnership - and other forums looking at crime patterns in the borough.
This year’s funding will also be used to update CCTV software and servers and to improve the overall image quality on screens within the Public Safety Centre control room. An additional £300,000 has been set aside for 2022-23 for a CCTV programme of works.