IT appals me that Wakefield Council spent £4.1m on 177 CCTV cameras in the fiscal years 2007-11, even if 16 local authorities wasted even more on this form of ineffective intrusiveness.
£515m – the total national outlay in this period – was too much to gamble on the speculation that CCTV would reduce crime. Why did councils not consider the case for better lighting? And might not criminals have transferred their activities beyond the reach of the cameras? Alternatively, such funds could have satisfied some other needs, which hadn’t been met.
To me, our right to privacy overrides any other factor. We are entitled to walk the streets free from the prying gaze of some unknown person in an unseen place. Therefore I advocate Parliament should prohibit the surveillance of the streets by publicly-owned cameras.
Keith F Wells,
Chairman Mid-Yorkshire branch of UKIP
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