Yesterday a pair of CPOs were knocking on doors in the Wiverton Road/Foxhall Road area asking whether people were in favour or against a camera being installed at the crossroads. In their words - "We want to know if you're in favour or not, and if you are in favour we'd like to take your name and address to pass to the council."

The council are trying to pinpoint the people in our community who feel isolated and alienated from their neighbours. They presumably want to use these people as examples of why we should all submit to being watched every time we leave our houses.

This is probably a response to the groups of lads who've been hanging around on doorsteps in that area since the cameras were installed at Foxhall/Gladstone and Berridge road a couple of years ago. Where will the kids go next? Surely the state keeping a beady eye on two streets is never going to solve problems with anti-social behaviour - at best it just pushes the problem round the corner. It also increases the general level of alienation, fear and mistrust in our society, which surely ultimately results in more anti-social behaviour.

Not forgetting the cost of course - last time the council installed cameras in this area they told us they were spending £20,000 per camera. Are they going to spend the same portion of our council tax again? Surely that money would be far better spent on youth provision, which in forest fields is mostly left to volunteer-led self-funded projects.