One dissident councillor persistently opposed the introduction of CCTV in Marlborough when the Town Council last night (Monday) laboriously voted through an eight-point positive report drafted by Shelley Parker, the town clerk.
The debate, in which each point was dealt with individually with a named vote called for, still left the council awaiting a decision to be made in secret session on which of four potential companies might be appointed to provide static and deployable cameras to cover both the High Street and other vulnerable areas.
The council, which has earmarked an initial £20,000 to pay for a CCTV system with financial support also coming from Marlborough’s Chamber of Commerce, has also yet to agree a satisfactory budget for the overall project, including annual maintenance costs plus membership of the CCTV Users Group.
The possible £35,000 total cost implications confront new financial problems now that the Town Council is due to lose a £31,000 annual Wiltshire Council grant as a result of the government’s welfare reforms. They have the unexpected result in the withdrawal of tax benefit funding from town and parish councils.
And it still awaits the launch of a major consultation exercise to discover the widest possible views of residents and retailers, online and off, which will take some four to six weeks to complete.
That means it is unlikely that any green light for CCTV – the outcome of a meticulous 20,000-word report by Councillor Nick Fogg — will now not be made until early next year.
Yet throughout last night’s discussions Councillor Alexander Kirk Wilson also persistently voted against the fundamental introduction of CCTV on any basis, telling colleagues: “I am often wrong and in a way I hope I am on this.”
But the former mayor insisted: “We need to be clear about the aim of this proposal, and whether it will achieve that aim – at least to a degree commensurate with the cost.”
In a statement he declared: “I am unconvinced that criminals come here because there is no CCTV or people start fights in the High Street because they are not being recorded.
“Similarly, there will be some occasions when prosecution is aided by CCTV footage, but mostly I guess not. Half the crime is theft, and half of that is shoplifting.
“My guess is that High Street CCTV will help little there. There is an absence of muggings or child abductions for which it would be a major help. So I do not support CCTV in the High Street.”
And he warned: “From next year our Council Tax is likely to rise 18 per cent following the withdrawal of grant funding to compensate for the reduction in our Council Tax base caused by Coalition changes to Council Tax benefit.
“We are proposing to spend at least £30,000 to install a CCTV system which will need maintaining and, presumably, upgrading – and which I fear will achieve very few of our aims beyond providing spurious reassurance.”
Councillor Fogg told Marlborough News Online: “CCTV has, at best, a limited validity. It represents little threat to organised crime and lawyers agree that the chances of securing convictions through its use in evidence are minimal. It may have an effect in deterring certain types of anti-social behaviour.
“At present Marlborough Town Council appears to have no coherent brief as to what it requires. A lot more work has to be put into that. It is clear that the facility is almost bound to go over the allotted budget and there appear to be few tenable ideas as to how any potential shortfall may be made up.”
And he added: “There has also been little discussion as to where cameras might best be sited. It is on issues like this that the public should be consulted — not just asked to give ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to consultation questions.
“If CCTV is to be installed at all, where might it better be focussed than on the covered end of Patten Alley, where shop windows get smashed on Saturday nights with the regularity of the football results?”
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