CCTV proposal for the Island - note: This consultation is now closed. Thank you for all your comments

Trustees have successfully bid for £90,000 of funding from Enfield Council to enable the Island to be linked to the Enfield CCTV centre.

It has been an aim of the Trust since 2003 to have CCTV on the Island to deter crime and to reassure residents. Most recently at the December 2010 annual general meeting, there was agreement among the vast majority of residents that we need CCTV on the Island.

If we agree, there will be two camera sites on the Island, one at the entrance in front of the water tower and another by the bus terminus at Brunswick Road.

The cameras will be monitored 24 hours a day by specialist staff at the Enfield Public Safety Centre. Built in 2003, the Centre is owned and managed by Enfield Council and all monitoring and enforcement is performed by highly trained Legion Security employees. The centre also houses Metropolitan police officers who are based on site full time.

The Centre also monitors all council owned community safety cameras in public places, including those on housing estates and internal CCTV cameras for the council's housing services and carries out traffic enforcement on behalf of Transport for London.

Privacy and security are safeguarded by the specialist centre and images will not be directly viewed by Enfield Island Village residents or estate managers. If there is a problem on the Island, we will contact the centre or the police to alert them. If monitoring staff notice a problem, they will be able to contact our estate manager or the police.

There will be no automatic recording of number plates or a record of the comings and goings of residents. However, if there is an incident, recordings will be reviewed.

The initial installation includes the costs of linking the Island to the Enfield Public Safety Centre and an initial two sites. In the future we would be able to add more sites or to provide a camera that can be moved to different locations if there are on-going problems.

The immediate decision for trustees is whether we accept the funding, which would be paid directly by the Council to the contractor. Our successful bid means that residents do not need to pay the initial £90,000 cost, which is great news. On the other hand, there is an annual maintenance cost and contribution to the monitoring costs of approximately £10K per year, which the Trust will have to fund from the rent charge.

Because the funding is available only in this financial year, we will have to take a decision in early March 2012 and would therefore welcome your views. If you have any questions about privacy etc. we can obtain information for you from the Enfield Public Safety Centre.

Please send your views to info@eiv.org.uk or leave us a note at the community centre by 13 March.

Enfield Island Village Trust 21 February 2012