Two representatives from Logan City Council, Queensland Australia visited Eastfield House on Tuesday 27 November to view Huntingdonshire District Council’s mobile CCTV unit and control room and to learn about the set up and how the council uses the systems for crime prevention.
There are no mobile CCTV units in existence in Australia, and after being granted funding to purchase a mobile unit of their own to monitor public safety, officers from Logan City decided to make a special trip all the way from Australia on an eight day fact finding mission to view successful systems currently running in the UK.
The visitors met with Frank Cannon CCTV team leader, Roger Clark Mobile CCTV unit supervisor, Sonia Hansen streetscene manager, Councillor Ian Bates Leader of the council and councillor Mike Simpson deputy leader of the council to learn about the unique vehicle and control room. Representative from Quadrant Security Systems, who fitted out the vehicle, also attended to answer questions and provide information.
The district council have been using the vehicle fitted with CCTV cameras since 2004 in partnership with Cambridgeshire Constabulary. The vehicle is designed to give the council the ability to provide a CCTV service to areas in the district which are not covered by their fixed camera system in the town centres. Whilst the vehicle is mainly used on special patrols and operations to combat anti-social behaviour, it can also be used on other types of operations especially where crowd control may be an issue.
Councillor Mike Simpson, Deputy Leader of the Council said; “I was delighted to hear that a council all the way from Australia was interested in our CCTV systems after reading a report on the council’s website on the success of the unit. The mobile CCTV unit is an excellent tool to help the community feel safe and to assist in combating crime and antisocial behaviour”.
Ms Coates from Logan City Council, Australia said; “Our council is committed to building a mobile CCTV facility to enhance the safety and security of Logan residents. The Huntingdon District Council mobile CCTV van is an extremely impressive unit and it is clear that it provides an invaluable service to the community. Ms Coates also expressed her gratitude on behalf of Logan City Council for the warm welcome and hospitality afforded by Huntingdon District Council’s Leader Councillor Ian Bates, Deputy Leader Councillor Mike Simpson and council staff.
The CCTV scheme plays a major part in reducing crime and fear of crime within the areas covered by the cameras and CCTV has provided valuable evidence to assist the police in identifying offenders and the courts.
The move of the CCTV control room from Pathfinder House to our new operations centre at Eastfield House, Huntingdon presented the opportunity to update the monitoring and recording equipment, so gone are the thousands of video tapes once used to record. They have been replaced by a series of high volume hard disk drives.