CCTV for Forest Fields approved by City Council

Further to what has been posted above (by who I'm not sure, though it's of an email I received and forwarded on to our mailing list), the councillors still have not replied to our letter raising our concerns.

Our letter dated 1st May 2009 was signed by 22 Forest Fields residents from a variety of backgrounds, and the text can be found here:

 http://www.forestfields.org.uk/2009/05/04/letter-to-councillors/

I received two acknowledgement letters (one from Cllr. Carole-Ann Jones and one from Cllr. Jon Collins) stating that they were looking into our concerns and would contact us again as soon as they were able to. Evidently this is not the case, as no such contact has been made before this decision was reached.

We asked the councillors if they would arrange a time for us to meet with them to discuss our concerns - this has not happened in the two months since the letter was sent.

Can Cllr. Jon Collins just steamroller over the concerns of local residents - without discussion - if he sees fit? Evidently he has just done precisely that!

So there you go folks - "representative" democracy in action! What a joke - though no surprises, really!

Last time I wasted time writing letters to "representatives", they at least had the manners to write back and tell me they were going to completely ignore my concerns. I guess even that is too much to ask of Nottingham City councillors?

If our so called "representatives" aren't even going to respond to our letters or offer us a chance to talk to them properly, then it looks like we'll have no options left but to take direct action to prevent the masts being put up.

Because what other choices have they left us with?

Of course, suggestions for other possible courses of action would be gratefully received. It seems to me like it will be a waste of time "appealing" to Jon Collins, when we've already clearly stated our concerns and he can't even be bothered to reply or discuss them with us the first time around, before unilaterally reaching his decision.

(Does he think Nottingham his own little mini dictatorship?)

It's not even very long since the most recent Home Office studies pointing out how crap CCTV is were in the news:

"CCTV schemes in city and town centres have little effect on crime, says report"
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/18/cctv-crime-police

"The use of closed-circuit television in city and town centres and public housing estates does not have a significant effect on crime, according to Home Office-funded research to be distributed to all police forces in England and Wales this summer."

So why won't the councillors even TALK to us about it?

I emailed Debbie at the Area 4 management team to find out if in fact Forest Fields public opinion swayed massively in favor of CCTV.

Here is the response I got.

Dear x
A total of about 2,400 households received letters asking for their views on the masts and of the 160 that responded, 84 were in favour of the CCTV masts and 76 were against.

Best wishes

Debbie

So the (effectively bankrupt) Nottingham City Council is prepared to waste thousands of pounds of council tax payers money on a scheme that only 3.5% of residents polled said they were in favour of. Jusr remind me, who are they supposed to work for? Who pays them?

There was no mention of it at the last Area 4 meeting either which is a little strange seeing as the councillors the campaigners wrote to are all members.

With regard to JoCo making the decision himself, portfolio holders on the Executive Board are entitled to make decisions within their remit themselves as long as they aren't 'key' decisions (revenue costs of £500k or more or capital of £1m) or a decision that's reserved for the full council, which would certainly cover a small CCTV scheme like this.

Watch out for it coming up here on NCC's website

 http://open.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/comm/view.asp

Btw I blogged on this yesterday

 http://ncclols.blogspot.com/2009/07/forest-fields-cctv.html.

Please sign our petition

 http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/nccfreeinfo/index.html