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Underground CCTV monitoring centre to close
AN underground spy centre beneath the Trocadero is to be closed and moved to Lisson Grove.
Westminster’s flagship CCTV control room is to close when the council dissolves the Westminster CCTV Trust later this year.
The Trust is a fund-raising partnership between the Metropolitan Police and the private sector established six years ago.
Councillor Audrey Lewis, lead member for community protection, said: “The existence of the Trust no longer holds good.
“It is proposed to bring the strategic management of CCTV back within the council.”
Private security firm Chubb will be handed the £500,000 annual maintenance contract.
Westminster will have more than 400 cameras in operation when 250 special wireless CCTV cameras are installed early next year.
The 250 new cameras – almost as many as the total number of CCTV cameras used for road traffic enforcement in the whole of London – are being introduced as Westminster moves to phase out parking wardens.
Former chief of the Metropolitan Police traffic division Kevin Delaney, now head of road safety at the IAM Motoring Trust, said cameras were making massive profits for Westminster. He said: “The simple fact is that Westminster make a great deal of money from parking enforcement.”
A spokesman for Westminster City Council said: “All of our CCTV operations are monitored and scrutinised by an independent panel made up of members of the community, including local residents and businesses. These ‘community observers’ can and do carry out unannounced spot checks any time of the day or night to ensure the CCTV control room and staff are operating in accordance with our code of practice. In this regard our CCTV network is one of the most open in the UK.” |
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