In west London, a business improvement district (BID) is linking a town centre shopping centre’s CCTV with the local council’s and with police command.
Hammersmith BID and Broadway Centre are jointly funding a project for the Metropolitan Police to access the CCTV of the Broadway Transportation Hub and Shopping Centre via the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s CCTV. Broadway (Talgarth Road entrance pictured) has spent £250,000 on upgrading its CCTV cameras and control room. A year ago the BID made a ISO 31000-compliant Security Risk Analysis (SRA) of the Hammersmith town centre (the BID area, centred on Hammersmith Broadway). The BID did feasibility study and put a business case to its board of directors. The required funding came in September 2018.
The BID funds two extra police patrol officers and a council CCTV operator. Like some other BIDs where a town does not have a business crime reduction partnership, the BID runs a SafetyNet radio scheme, and has its own security staff, who wear body worn cameras.
Gordon Brockie, Operations Manager, HammersmithBID, said: “Our security risk analysis programme is a UK first in urban risk management and the BID are really pleased to be working in partnership with the Broadway Centre, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and the Metropolitan Police to deliver this CCTV project for the benefit and security of everyone that passes through the centre.” And Mark Adedeji, Contracts Security Manager at Broadway says: “The new CCTV system links with the Hammersmith CCTV Control room and the Metropolitan Police and will help to integrate technology alongside our joint agency effort towards keeping our valuable tenants safe. The sharing of information between the Centre, the Council and the Metropolitan Police will help to increase the evidential value of CCTV evidence and will also work in the best interest of our tenants alongside the benefits of wider public safety within the local community.”
Among the security and crime prevention work by the BID; one of those BID funded town centre police officers worked to serve a Community Behavioural Order on a persistently anti-social and violent man who was being arrested by police. The offender is now banned from Hammersmith town centre and (an indication of his pattern of offending) from drinking alcohol or urinating in a public place. If he does, it’s a criminal offence as a breach of the order.
BID members use the data sharing platform DISC from Littoralis. As in most Uk shopping areas, the security issues are varied, such as shop theft including by gangs, and safeguarding of the vulnerable young or elderly.
