How Royal Leamington Spa will use a £420,00 Home Office investment to help stamp out crime in problem areas.
Based at the Royal Priors in Leamington, the town’s main indoor shopping centre, Adam James is the co-ordinator of the Warwickshire Retail Crime Initiative (www.wrciuk.com). The scheme has some 60 members in Leamington, and 250 county-wide, covering Rugby, Stratford, Warwick, Kenilworth and Bedworth. He reports that the WRCI circulates quarterly offender profile books, with stills of active shoplifters, and as a member of the Midlands Retail Crime Initiative has printed details of more than 50 ‘travelling targets’ – shoplifters from across the region. The WRCI is taking part in the trial of the Home-Office backed Business Information Crime Systems database, whereby for example the face of an offender in one area can be matched with a name in another; and WRCI members have recently begun requesting thumbprints from credit card and cheque users to deter use of stolen cards.
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The Government’s newly introduced £97 million CCTV initiative has helped Warwick District become one of the first councils’ to introduce a new security system that respects the privacy of the general public. Royal Leamington Spa will use the £420,00 Home Office investment to help stamp out crime in problem areas. ADT Fire and Security, has been awarded the contract, which will see the town’s CCTV operation extended into Whitnash and Lillington districts to allay public concerns in known crime hot-spots. Nigel Morley, Project Systems Sales Consultant from the Birmingham branch of ADT , said the council’s CCTV plans allow it to fully comply with data protection law. He said: ‘An innovative new measure, a privacy zone system, has been incorporated in this system in order to comply with new data protection laws. Warwick District Council will be one of the first local authorities in the country to employ this type of technology, which allows the system to blank out windows that a camera may inevitably pick up on its surveillance path. This means that the privacy of ordinary citizens can be respected, whilst helping to capture criminals in the act.’ The funding will enable the council to add 26 cameras to their 97, and introduce a 24-hour monitoring and control centre. Janie Barrett, Chief Executive of Warwick District Council and Chair of the Warwick District Community Safety Forum, said: ‘The council and the forum are delighted to have been given this substantial funding, which is needed to upgrade and extend the existing system in Royal Leamington Spa. We believe these extra measures will boost the confidence of residents. We worked together with our officers to plan strategic placement of the cameras, to ensure safety of our residents and their property without infringing on their right to privacy.’ Adrian Ford, Systems Sales Team Leader from ADT Birmingham, added: ‘The cameras will all be linked using fibre optics to the new control system giving 24-hour complete surveillance. In consultation with the council we have designed and developed the system to incorporate the latest technology, fulfilling all of the district’s security concerns.’ Ian Coker, Royal Leamington Spa Town Centre Manager, said: ‘Leamington Spa has again displayed its progressive thinking and commitment to security, which has already resulted in the centre becoming only the fifth town in the country to achieve the safer shopping award.’ ADT Fire and Security has already begun installation, and expects the control room to be in place by January and completion of the additional CCTV cameras by July 2002.
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Leamington Spa was the first and founding town in the Warwickshire Retail Crime Initiative, in 1998. The scheme has some 60 members in Leamington, and 250 county-wide, covering Rugby, Statford, Warwick, Kenilworth and Bedworth. For details .
