Trying to look inconspicuous while poking around an empty building on one of the many back streets on the Slough Estate is no easy task. The images that the security cameras manage to capture of this ineffectual attempt at a break-in make it clear quite that it was a task beyond an Estates Gazette‘s journalist’s abilities.
However, it’s not just desk-bound writers who fall prey to the digital eyes that blanket the trading estate. The rapid drop in crime figures across the estate in the past five years demonstrates that career criminals are just as easily caught out.
Keeping an eye on the huge estate on the outskirts of Slough town centre, which has free access right across the site through any number of access points, is no easy task. Despite this, theft from motor vehicles has dropped from 309 in 2001 to 93 in 2003, while actual burglaries have dropped from 169 in 2001 to 48 in 2003.
A security revolution in Slough
The revolution started in 1999, when the board approved a five-year roll-out of digital CCTV, starting with those in high-threat areas, such as the north-west corner, which backs onto a housing estate. With costs estimated at around three-quarters of a million pounds, this seemed to be a sensible way to stagger the investment.
CCTV cameras are, in themselves, nothing new. It’s how they fit into the general security set-up behind them that makes the Slough system different. Although Slough Estates is funding the CCTV system, it isn’t funding its security team. Business Watch is a self-supporting security and advice service paid for with subscriptions from tenants around the estate.
Memberships in the service come and go, as financial directors have occasional moments of distress and seek to trim budgets, but David Arthur, investment manager at Slough Estates, is confident that the association is a worthwhile effort.
“It offers an incentive for people to stay on the estate,” says Arthur. “Some tenants are very enthusiastic about it.”
The security operation is housed in a shop in a small parade at the heart of the estate. At the front is Business Watch’s John Devine, a former policeman who is now in charge of security across the estate. Devine also advises on other Slough properties across the country.
Devine holds court at the front of the shop, while the security staff keep watch in a secure room at the back. Dozens of monitors switch in sequence through all the cameras on the estate, with the digital feeds streamed both to the screens and a recording system that keeps the images secure, ready to be downloaded to VHS tapes or CDs as needed.
Devine spent 30 years in the police, including a spell with Buckingham Palace security. His affection for the force is evident as he reacts badly to a joke about them.
However, the piles of information on new security products littering his desk betray an enthusiasm for the new way of policing as well as nostalgia for the old.
Also, it is the digital element of the system that makes the current round of CCTV so effective: it allows detailed zooming, instant prints of miscreant journalists and even a licence-plate recognition system.
To catch a thief
The staff proudly tell of catching a thief breaking into a car on a retail park a distance away from the trading estate by using the cameras on maximum magnification. And, with a mixture of delight and disgust, they recount how a person used a call box for the purposes of self-gratification in the small hours of the morning.
However, it is the capture of the occasional persistent “villain” that seems to give Devine the most pleasure in his job. He’s ever the copper at heart.
But he has no time for reflection. As criminals grow more sophisticated, so do the tools needed to defeat them. Digital CCTV is the solution at the moment.
And the future for Slough’s security measures? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere on Devine’s desk.
