Councillor says Erdington issues ‘valued less’ amid CCTV row

Birmingham City Council (BCC) previously said it is committed to exploring how CCTV could be reintroduced into council high and low-rise blocks and neighbourhoods.

It therefore sought permission recently to implement a 12-month CCTV pilot, which could then provide evidence to support a possible wider implementation across the city.

A council report said a number of “hotspots”, where a particular block or estate is experiencing significant crime and antisocial behaviour (ASB), had been identified to trial the potential use of the new cameras.

The council had previously decided to decommission all CCTV back in 2014.

While BCC has said it wants residents to feel safer in their homes, there have been questions over why certain tower blocks had not been included in the pilot.

Speaking at a meeting of the city council this month, Erdington councillor Robert Alden said a number of blocks in his ward were struggling with serious issues, including ASB, but were not chosen.

He has previously accused the council of “shameful behaviour” over the pilot.

He said at the recent meeting: “What is the cabinet member’s message to residents of Erdington about why she has failed to consider the issues they have suffered despite them being more numerous than other areas of the city.”

He went on to argue that the issues in Erdington were being “valued less” than the issues faced by other residents elsewhere in Birmingham.

“You’ll be aware it’s a pilot programme,” Councillor Jayne Francis, the cabinet member for housing, responded. “We use the data sets available to us to make some decisions about the design and implementation of that programme.

“We’ll be keeping a very close watch on what the findings are and report back to the chamber as soon as possible.”

Pressed about the Councillor Alden’s concerns, she continued: “There’ll be a lot of interest in this because our citizens enjoy the security that they think CCTV cameras give them.

“I will certainly take away the issue and look at how the decision was made.

“It may well be that there are other softer bits of information or intelligence we used to make those decisions.”

‘Everyone deserves to feel safe in their homes’

Guy Chaundy, assistant director at Housing Strategy and Enabling, previously said the evidence used to select the tower blocks for the pilot was “very much data driven”.

He said this included crime data, what tenants were saying and data from the council’s internal systems around ASB reports.

“I do take point around assurance is needed that is robust and accurate data,” he continued during a recent cabinet meeting. “There’s going to be other blocks that have issues – well, most of our blocks have some degree of issues around anti-social behaviour.

“This is a pilot and we need, through the course of the 12 months, to start looking at our long-term strategies around roll-out for CCTV”.

Councillor Nicky Brennan, cabinet member for community safety, added: “Everyone in the city deserves to feel safe in their homes.

“I will pick up with the community safety team, as well as our local policing teams, about what kind of strategies we can do on a city-wide basis as well to feed into this and help residents feel safe in their home”

The city council’s cabinet approved the implementation of CCTV during a 12-month pilot across specific hot-spot areas last month.

Why the council previously decommissioned CCTV

The council’s decision to previously decommission all CCTV in 2014 was taken based on the financial pressures at the time, according to a report.

It stated: “This decision was in part informed by the potential increase in service charges needed to fund the upgrade of the CCTV system, at a time when the switch to Universal Credit meant that many tenants were coping with budgeting their income to meet their outgoings.

“At the time of the decision to decommission in 2014, the projected costs to upgrade the system were £13 million (£18m at 2023 prices)”.

The decision was then taken to move from CCTV to a system of “enhanced remote night security and secure entry systems” to all high-rise blocks.

Report by Local Democracy Reporter Alexander Brock