When a London council decided to locate a CCTV camera in a quiet area of Camden the residents were delighted, especially as its declared purpose was to make the streets safer from muggers, drug dealers, burglars and car thieves. The £25,000 swivelling spy camera made them feel they were at last getting a tangible benefit from Camden’s rising council tax.
But it didn’t take long for them to discover it was going to cost a lot more — in ways they hadn’t expected. The camera proved not very good at identifying suspects lurking in the shadows but it was very good at reading residents’ car numberplates.
Since the Albert Street camera was installed last year its operators have issued 2,558 penalty notices for a range of minor motoring offences, such as double parking to unload groceries or allegedly blocking the flow of traffic.
The fines are part of a fast-spreading “reciprocation” policy that allows anti-crime CCTV cameras in London to be used for traffic enforcement, and traffic cameras for crime control. What began as a pilot study will soon be joined by 13 London boroughs, including Westminster, which already makes annual profits in excess of £30m from the issuing of parking tickets.
Thousands of cameras installed originally to counter terrorism or robbery could end up trapping more motorists than criminals. Indeed, the use of CCTV cameras for traffic enforcement has been so successful it is likely to be taken up nationally. The Traffic Management Act sets out powers for local authorities outside London to use CCTV against drivers and the Department for Transport wants them to do so from 2008.
The number of fines is set to soar. There are many, many more CCTV cameras than traffic cameras. In some urban areas they cover every inch of tarmac. Motorists could conceivably be watched from the start of their journey to their destination and penalised for if they fail to obey a no-right-turn sign or no-U-turn sign, pass a no-entry sign or stop in the wrong place.
Councils are naturally delighted about the prospects for revenue raising; private contractors such as NCP will set up the cameras while the councils watch the money roll in. The disadvantage for motorists is that they can’t escape. Traffic cameras are usually painted bright yellow, but CCTV cameras are often on the walls of buildings and on poles above drivers’ field of vision.
Certainly the residents of Albert Street were sitting ducks. Families coming home with the weekly shop were hard-pressed to find parking spaces (the council had cut the number of residents’ bays in favour of metered parking) and so were stopping alongside cars outside their front doors to unload.
Motorists who pulled up — even for less than a minute — were sent penalty notices for double parking and demands for £100, even though some were stationary for less than the time it typically takes a taxi to drop a fare. One was fined for waiting while another motorist pulled out of a meter bay so that he could slip in. Others were fined for loading up before long journeys.
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Emily Windsor, a barrister and Albert Street resident, doesn’t deny she briefly double-parked. Camden sent her pictures with the fine. “My husband was in the car, sitting in the passenger seat. We knew about the camera and thought if he stayed with the car it would be all right. I’m carrying a few boxes and I’m there in the photographs shown carrying them,” she said.
Windsor organised a petition of more than 100 residents but Camden council seemed uninterested, dismissing complainants as a vocal minority.
Tony Parsons works in advertising and has lived in Albert Street for 27 years. “On one occasion we had a car full of shopping, and on another we were trying to unload my elderly mother. There was nowhere else to park so we had to double park, but for just minutes.”
Parsons asked Camden why a camera designed to stop muggings was being used to mug residents. He was told by Mark Roe, the council’s senior community safety officer and one of those who helps administer the scheme: “In order to sustain CCTV in Camden it is essential that funds are secured to monitor and maintain the system. Therefore, there is a reciprocal arrangement that all cameras may be used for traffic enforcement and all traffic enforcement cameras be used for community safety purposes.”
Nick Lester, the director of transport for the Association of London Government, which regulates the use of CCTV for traffic enforcement, justified the cameras on the grounds that they combat congestion. He said most cameras were set up by private contractors but pictures showing alleged motoring offences were checked by council employees and stored for evidence.
So next time you’re dropping off the shopping, don’t forget to smile.
Just what offence have I committed?
I was one of those fined £100 for an alleged traffic offence, writes Jonathan Futrell (pictured). I double parked in Albert Street at 8pm on a winter’s evening with my lights on and engine running.
The time on the top right of the pictures sent by Camden council shows I stopped for 52 seconds to pick up a friend to give him a lift (strangely, Camden supports car sharing). I wasn’t in a bus lane — no buses come down my street, and I wasn’t blocking traffic because there wasn’t any.
In fact it wasn’t clear at all what laws I and other residents accused of double parking had broken. A spokesman for the council said in response to that question: “It’s not a bylaw — it’s in the Highway Code. It’s a parking contravention.” If it is, I can’t find it, and nor could any of the local people I spoke to.
Albert Street is a desirable address between Camden High Street and Regent’s Park, where three-storey white stucco Victorian homes sell for well in excess of £1m. It’s a hunting ground for law breakers, even under the watchful eye of the camera. Could it be Camden is more interested in raising revenue than preventing crime? The council recently backtracked a little, allowing a five-minute loading and unloading period. It remains to be seen whether this is workable for those with infirm relatives or those making deliveries. The concession is not necessarily permanent, nor is it an amnesty for outstanding fines.
The use of CCTV in this way reinforces the impression that councils and transport bodies are increasingly run by people who see motorists as a soft touch — too busy to dispute fines that hurt but which aren’t worth going to court over. Someone, somewhere is raking in a tidy sum.
