Wednesday 18 August 2021

Chearsley CCTV Consultation

Communication for Chearsley Parishioners

In a bid to improve security and surveillance opportunities the Parish Council are currently looking at a very advanced CCTV project for the village with the UK security group based in Aylesbury.

The recommendation is to place the CCTV pole just close to the Bus shelter and behind the Post box in order to be able to have good lines of sight towards the Horse chestnut intersection as well as the road exits / entrances to the village green.

Having had this area mapped out by the UK security group its the best location given the ability to also keep the apparatus reasonably accessible and more discreet to those around this area.

The system is technically advanced with the potential to include automatic number plate recognition  ( ANPR ) and is monitored 24 hours a day within the central HQ in Aylesbury.

The technology is such that it has a privacy setting so that it openly looks at the target areas with all housing and gardens blanked out if requested.

It is important to note that no one from the general public including the Parish Council can access these images. It is only if an incident occurs and something is referred to the police that the images can be passed directly from UK Security onto the Police.

UK Security are fully GDPR compliant in how they treat this data confidentially.

I have with one of my colleagues Keith Turnbull recently visited the HQ of the UK Security Group and we were most impressed with the monitoring technology including the ability to go back in time to look at potential issues / incidents (usually 21 days ) that have been identified by reports on the ground by parishioners and also requests from the local police who have established that the route was possibly being used as a regular run for criminal purposes

The project has the full support and encouragement of the police and will undoubtedly give the security of our village a big boost.

We also have a number of testimonials from villages close by who have installed a similar system and all are extremely satisfied with the results achived to date . These testimonials can be made available for public consumption.

Once costs are finalised we are also hopeful that a good proportion of these costs will be met by external grants within Buckinghamshire as well as a contribution from the Parish council.

At the moment installation costs are in the region of 18K (including a provision for electric supply and a hook up to a WiFi router ) and I am confident the lions share can be funded by external grants as I say above , annual running costs will be about 1K

The purpose of this note is to be transparent about our intentions and by bringing this project to the wider Chearsley community we hope to get feedback and constructive comments that will help inform us of the potential support or otherwise that may be out there.

So just wanting to give you, the villagers, a heads up first and seek any initial thoughts before I bring to the full Parish Council for discussion ?? Comments, either supporting or raising questions, as ever please to ChearsleyPC@chearsley.com.

Should you wish to visit the HQ of the UK security group this can be arranged and also i am more than willing to have a face to face catch up with anyone if requested and indeed if much interest is noted then either a separate meeting at the village hall or if not a significant item on the PC agenda at our next meeting when all can attend.

Best Wishes 
Nic Brown

Chairman Chearsley Parish Council