11 August - CCTV. To keep us safer or poorer?
The
Bexley Times said that council officers would be conducting a survey about CCTV
in “Crayford Town Centre” today and as I wasn’t far away a quick look seemed to be in order.
They were hard to find. I asked in the Library and they knew
nothing of it. The caretaker in the old Town Hall said that the council referred
to the Waterside Cafe as the Town Centre now but I drew a blank there too. I was
beginning to think it was like
the last council Road Show I tried to attend, but then I spotted some yellow
jackets in the far distance, outside Boots.
CCTV can be divisive; I know someone who thinks the entire country should be
covered but my views are far more mixed. Public safety is one thing but
councillor Craske telling us that he wants to
extend CCTV use to
watching moving traffic (and issue fines) to get more value out of them is a
sign of his true intention. The staff conducting the survey seemed to think that writing to Craske would solve all the problems.
There is an
on-line survey on the council website. The
Crayford link on the right of the page is currently broken.
Later in the afternoon I looked at Townley Road where a resident had said a
perfectly good bit of road has been dug up and replaced and wondered if I knew
why when roads still in a bad state after the hard winter are neglected. Afraid
not. My correspondent describes the work as “dubious” but I really haven’t a
clue. Experimental anti-skid surface perhaps?
From nearby
Oaklands Road where traffic is now forced to the centre of the road comes
news that traffic is now, guess what? Going faster straight down the middle of
the road. As the EU safety man said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.