This Is Guernsey

By Simon Tostevin

Chris, far left, and Chloe Bullock of CCTV Watch demonstrate their cameras’ capabilities for Brian Corbet, left, and Mike Barneby. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0742450)

A SURVEILLANCE scheme for Mill Street has moved a step closer.

CCTV Watch is proposing the scheme and a drop-in meeting held recently at the Snack Time Internet Cafe for shop owners and interested parties received a positive reaction with Chris Bullock, a partner in CCTV Watch, estimating around a fifth of area traders turned up to express support.

‘The meeting was arranged to gauge interest and to get contact details off people,’ said Mr Bullock. ‘People were saying that as long as other people were going to sign up, they would too.’

The idea of implementing a surveillance scheme came about after some shop owners in Mill Street approached CCTV Watch to see if there was anything it could do after incidents in the area such as smashed windows, break-ins and assaults.

Mr Bullock said CCTV Watch would make the investment of installing the infrastructure, with shop owners subscribing and paying rent for the coverage and protection the four high-tech individual units would provide.

The cameras, which look like teardrop lamps, would cover the whole street as they offer 180-degree vision, unlike some of the the ones in the High Street, for example, which can look in only one direction.

‘The whole concept of CCTV is that if someone is going to rob a shop or assault someone they are going to try and cover their face before they do it, but with our camera covering the whole of Mill Street it means that they have to walk past one of our units to get into the street and past another to leave it.

‘We feel this is something the community has been asking for for years.’

Mr Bullock hoped enough businesses would sign up because the more that did, the cheaper the service became.

However, he accepted the role of the Environment Department was critical as permission for the placing of cameras in the street would ultimately rest with it.

‘There are specific places we will need to put them and we will need to get permission for each of them.’

The next step is to follow up the interest at the meeting and to try to get in touch with those who could not attend the drop-in, added Mr Bullock.

‘We will keep it rolling because we don’t want to stop at the first hurdle. It’s possible we will look to hold another meeting in a month’s time.

‘Problems in the area affect different stores in different ways.

‘If someone gets their window broken they may have to close for as long as three days, fork out money to repair it and lose out on revenue.’

Article posted on 24th March, 2009 - 2.30pm