The PCMA (Public CCTV Managers Association) has a new chairman, Alan Gardner of the London borough of Enfield. He takes over from another Londoner, Martin Lazell, of the London borough of Kingston upon Thames.
The official handover was at the PCMA’s Christmas lunch and winter meeting at Tamworth, hosted by association secretary Larry Phillips, the CCTV manager at Tamworth council in Staffordshire. Pictured during the meeting at the Castle Hotel left to right are Alex Carmichael, director of technical services at the BSIA; Alan Gardner; Richard Moore, director of commercial services at Skills for Security; and Martin Lazell.
Alex Carmichael and Richard Moore were speakers at the meeting, Alex as chair of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s standards board; and Richard Moore on training and qualifications for the CCTV sector.
The PCMA is next due to meet on June 11, 2015. Alan Gardner is equally a long-time local government CCTV man; he’s manager of the Enfield Public Safety Centre (EPSC) and has been at Enfield for a dozen years and was at Stevenage six years before that. He’s a fellow of the Security Institute.
About Martin Lazell
Mark Rowe writes: Martin Lazell is one of the relatively few people in private security and public space CCTV, as in many branches of life, that put in the quiet and unsung hours of meetings and work – beyond the full-time day job – for the overall good of the sector. He started in CCTV in 1996, as project manager to install the Kingston upon Thames local government CCTV. He first attended what was then the TAG CCTV group (technical officer group) in Huddersfield in 1998, and became vice-chairman of the London group of public CCTV managers in 2000. In 2002 he became secretary of the PCMA, and chair of the London group from 2003, stepping back to be vice-chairman from 2008 to 2011. He became PCMA chairman in 2005.
Beyond the association, he was a member of the original joint training group working with the SIA from 2004 on the CCTV operator licensing competencies; and joined the Skills for Security sector consultation group in the days when it was chaired by Martin Beaumont. Martin Lazell was a member of the ALG (Association of London Government) camera sharing group which developed a MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Transport for London; and is a member of the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s advisory group.
In short, he’s sought to improve standards, ‘and get better use of our systems, really, trying to bring things together, particularly the traffic enforcement and public space operations; and there’s still a gap between the way they are operating. Partly that’s down to legislation, the two areas have been legislated in different ways. There’s still lots to do. This current climate is a bit of a challenge for everybody, and the financial situation. So it’s by no means job done. But you have to step back at a point.”
