Freshwater is getting a new £3,000 CCTV camera in an effort to curb the rise in anti-social behaviour.
The 360º camera will replace the outdated CCTV at the multi-use games area and skatepark, off School Green Road, in Freshwater.
It comes as a councillor says the youth shelter next to the skatepark has become a ‘drug-dealing area’. In recent months, the area has seen an increase in anti-social behaviour, with reports of broken glass, graffiti and damage to public property.
The work was approved by Freshwater Parish Council at its meeting on Tuesday and will cost the authority £3,070. A new electric box will also be installed as the current one has been vandalised.
The camera will cover the whole area, including the youth shelter although the covered seating area could soon be removed. At its meeting, the parish council voted to remove the shelter after a request was made from a local primary school for one.
Councillors decided to offer the school the one currently by the skatepark and if they, or any other interested parties, didn’t want it, it would be scrapped. Not all councillors were in favour, with one saying they did not see why they had to get rid of it.
The parish council is in the process of providing a new purpose-built pump track and skate park and was advised by the designers to remove the youth shelter due to the anti-social behaviour it is associated with.
Councillor Gill Kennett, the council’s chair, said when the skatepark was installed some 20 years ago it was thought it would be helpful to have a youth shelter by the side.
Cllr Kennett said:
“Instead of it being somewhere to hang out, the youth shelter has become a drug dealing area and has been very battered as well.”
In a recent inspection, due to damage the youth shelter was deemed a medium safety risk by the Royal Society of Prevention of Accidents. The new camera system could be installed in the next week.
The parish council also approved its updated CCTV policy, which ensures cameras are positioned so it covers council areas and prominent signage is in place to advise of the cameras.
getting like Ryde Sandown Cowes Newport to be honest all of the island is like it. one big dump
The whole world is not just the island
As I have TIME and TIME again explained to all of you naive people.
The REASON crime is on the increase is because NO court, no matter if it has photographic evidence and the offender dragged in by ten burly Police officers, can EVER again give ‘meaningful’ sentences for what is vile but petty crime BECAUSE OUR PRISONS ARE FULL of the world flotsam and dross now, as well as our own, and so their is NO ROOM.
So the so called ‘punishment’ will be laughable, and the yobs KNOW IT.
Just an old persons ‘appeaser’ to look like they have listened, but nothing will change.
Watch and see.
No Law and Order is the problem.
Perhaps if we had a visible police force it would act as a deterrent? But, I guess that would mean patrolling these areas on foot at unsociable hours.
Understand these cretins DON’T, and rightly have NO NEED to ‘fear the Police’.
They know more than you that the Police can do NOTHING to them, for the courts can’t jail anyone unless doing worse crimes than the overfilled jail birds have done, as now, with the worlds rejects arriving and filling our prisons there is NO ROOM to do so, even IF they catch them.
So Cameras, blue lights, Police may put fear into weaker citizens but these people KNOW they cant take what they haven’t got, they care not about a record as don’t need a job, just a womb to fill and a home, income and easy life is then given forever. When bored, fill another and the income is extended as is the amount of vile clones to ruin the next generations lives too
I hope the parish council will maintain and have someone who knows how use it, not like last time.
How does a camera install and camera off shelf cost £3000?. Think maybe some brown envelopes!. It won’t be there long as soon vandelised,no matter if culprit caught,they would be a hero in eyes of some and even a fine would never cover cost.
Will this cctv camera cover the entire surface area of Freshwater.? Feral youths are continually on the rampage according to Facebook news sources, including one Councillor who had to step down due to to his house being vandalised, just because he spoke up. I’m afraid spending £3,070 on a camera in one area is pointless.
Commandant Eric Lassard came up with a great idea for locals to get involved and stop crime, he called it Citizens on Patrol.
Time for it to happen in Freshwater, give them a. 44 Magnum too.
These little wannabe “Gangster’s” as they want you to portray them as, won’t pay the slightest attention or care that there is a CCTV unit there. What they need is the public to take photos of their faces on their mobile phones, upload them to Facebook and ask for people to Name them and give the public THEIR home address out. Print out lots of A4 sheets with their photos of their face’s and name and address printed on it then pin them up all over the West Wight, every where. Plus the damage they caused should be automatically billed to their parent(s). Zero tolerance from now on. You think your a gangster? Yer right! you wouldn’t last ten minutes in a one of the UK’s major city’s, you are nothing more than losers.
Trouble is Victor, the do gooders will poke their noses in to this idea saying it’s against their human rights, for anyone to take pictures of them with out their permission, and stop any police actions taking place because of it, especially if put on public media, and the little shits know it. Thanks to the do gooders, the law is more on the scums side,and are given protection,as a priority to us. As far as making the parents pay for any damage, they would just plead poverty saying they couldn’t afford their snort and swill, and some 2k an hour barrister, all for free remember, would defend them for it. So until we get a Government with the balls to change it all, and who cares about the paying public, not a lot will change.
In which case why the bloody hell are we spending 130k on a new track for these entitled brats? Give them nothing other than a damn good beating.
To be honest the only reason for building the new track is to give them something to do, as in, a new challenge to see how quickly they can destroy it.
The parents of such, after more than one of these incidents should have the children taken into cheap purpose built care homes, and the house the family lived in, given to decent people (not flotsam) and then no benefits for the parents, no more free rent and c. tax and provide caravans on waste land near the tip for them to reside in, UNTIL they get a job and pay for private rent for the rest of their days.
The more these scum parent and kids are given, the more ‘entitled’ they think they are, and in times of hardship for the rest of us, tax credit kept scum are given more and more, for just producing more vile clones who will only be a drain for their entire all too long lives.
End the gravy train for such NOW
Absolutely spot on with that comment, and also to the comment by Victor 1.
Maybe you should both run for any new openings at Freshwater Parish Council I’m sure you would get a lot of votes.
Feral inbred xxxx.Put them down as well as the parents.Job done..