Operators using the new CCTV system in Newport’s control room. Picture by Jennifer Burton.
WIGHT LIVINGBULKY TV monitors and outdated tape recorders have been ditched as part of a revolutionary upgrade at the Island’s CCTV control room.
The IW Council has refurbished the Newport facility, installing top recording equipment, complete with the latest digital technology, to help keep a closer eye on the Island’s streets.
Quadrant Security Group managed the refurbishment project and we were given a guided tour of the new £289,000 control room.
We were immediately drawn to the eye-catching main wall, with its 30 new flat screens, providing 24-hour surveillance of the streets in Newport, Ryde and Sandown.
There are currently 82 cameras in use, with a further 15 to be installed in Shanklin and Cowes, in February.
And that doesn’t include the redeployable units, used to monitor crime hotspots, or at events such as Cowes Week and the IW Festival.
Camera operators in the control room can split individual screens to monitor several cameras at a time and if an incident occurs, closer surveillance can be arranged on the operators’ main spot monitors.
If staff see or suspect something, they can direct a camera to the incident to follow what happens, assisting the police with the developments via radio.
To highlight the need for an efficient system, between January and November last year, the police requested more than 600 recordings of CCTV footage, while operators monitored or assisted around 1,150 arrests between April 2008 and April 2009.
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| The IW Council’s Simon Dennis, left, and Darren Vaughan at the control room. Picture by Jennifer Burton. |
The control room also provides a live feed to the police control room in Netley. During the tour, a male shoplifter was caught on camera leaving Boots chemists in Newport High Street.
A radio call came in from the store and a camera was directed to the entrance, where the shoplifter was tackled by security men as he left. Within a minute a police officer was at the scene to make an arrest.
"We want to achieve early intervention of crimes and the upgrade to digital technology makes that process much more efficient," said Hampshire Constabulary’s inspector Mark Bell.
The software has been provided by Sheffield-based company Synectics, which works with Quadrant, and it includes a touchscreen map of the IW, where any camera can be accessed at the touch of a button. The images are recorded in frame rates of 12.5 per second, compared to the old system, which was one per second, and the spot monitors record in real time.
The days of trawling through old VHS tapes are gone, as footage can be accessed and viewed at a much quicker rate. It can also be put on a DVD, which can be shown to offenders during interviews, or to magistrates in court cases.
Members of the public, who have been involved in, or who are connected to an incident recorded on CCTV, such as vandalism to a car, can also visit the control room to view the footage.
Darren Vaughan, control room manager, said: "We have a very high detection rate of crime on the Island and this new equipment will help us even further."
The control room is under close scrutiny — it has its own camera in it — and regular audits are carried out.
"I want to reassure the public we don’t just follow people for the sake of it, there are very strict guidelines in place and there has to be a good reason for it," said Darren, whose team of staff received a commendation for its work from Hampshire Constabulary.
The new system will make it easier for the police to identify offenders and officers regularly visit the control room to help monitor events.
"Not only is it an essential tool to help police detect crimes, it also plays a huge role in preventing crime, alerting them to an incident before it escalates, such as groups of unruly people causing anti-social behaviour," said IW Council cabinet member for community safety, Cllr Barry Abraham.
Even after nearly two years of planning, plus two-and-a-half weeks of installing the equipment and redesigning the office, the wait for the new CCTV control room has been worthwhile.
"All these changes significantly improve the quality of evidence gathered through CCTV and it is already making a real difference to the service," said Simon Dennis, IW Council community safety services operations manager.