CCTV in Brentwood park ‘not stopping' antisocial behaviour

Brentwood Borough Council said that a CCTV feed from King George’s play area is monitored 24/7 but admits it does not have the staff to respond to incidents in real time.

Instead, council leader Cllr Chris Hossack wants residents to call the police if serious incidents take place.

READ MORE: £2.8m funding agreed for Brentwood Centre football hub

He responded after Leah Flack, who lives next to the park, called for reassurance that the council will reassess the effectiveness of the CCTV and tackle continued disruption in the evenings.

While anti-social behaviour has fallen considerably since cold weather set in, Mrs Flack says she expects it to pick up against in the spring.

One episode in August after dark saw three motorcycles and an electric scooter whizzing round the children's play area just yards from her back fence.

Leah Flack and her family are annoyed about anti-social behaviour fromadults drinking and swearing in a play area behind their back garden in Hartswood Road, Brentwood..

Leah said: “This is relying on residents in Hartswood Road to keep reporting it. This is not what we want. We don’t want to have to keep reporting it.”

She added: “I don’t need to phone the police if you have someone watching it. That’s not my job, that’s your job. That’s the point I was trying to make.

“We shouldn’t have to keep phoning the police. You have just boasted about installing CCTV. It’s not working. If I still have to phone someone to say ‘guys there’s motorbikes’, then nothing has changed. It has not improved anything.

Leah Flack and her family are annoyed about anti-social behaviour fromadults drinking and swearing in a play area behind their back garden in Hartswood Road, Brentwood..

“Pre-CCTV I used to phone the enforcement officers. What they are saying is post-CCTV I still have to phone someone.”

The mother of two claims that over the past six years, obscenities from screeching youths allegedly abusing equipment at King George’s park until the early hours of the morning have made life for her and her family increasingly intolerable.

She says she has repeatedly asked the council for more to be done to curb misbehaviour, adding that she has had to call the fire brigade after a climbing frame was torched and then a campfire nearly burnt out of control.

Leah Flack and her family are annoyed about anti-social behaviour fromadults drinking and swearing in a play area behind their back garden in Hartswood Road, Brentwood..

She claims that all-night parties with music blaring from speakers have meant she had to keep her windows closed even through the heat of the summer.

And she claims the problem has drastically worsened since Brentwood Council replaced play equipment at the cost of £265,000 – including one item that she says has allowed teenagers to peer into her garden.

That investment was part of the council’s £7 million scheme to transform King George’s playing fields, which began in January 2021 and forms part of the council’s 10-year leisure strategy.

Leah Flack and her family are annoyed about anti-social behaviour fromadults drinking and swearing in a play area behind their back garden in Hartswood Road, Brentwood..

She added: “It hasn’t improved. It’s winter now so we don’t get the activity anyway but I guarantee that from April and May it will start ramping up again.

“We’ve been here ten years. It’s always the same. Everything dies down in October. We have a really quiet Christmas and then as soon as April and the summer months start then that’s when the evening activity starts.”

Cllr Hossack told her at a meeting on December 7 that CCTV is up and running in King George’s playing fields, with signs up around each of the cameras and one pointed at the play area.

Leah Flack and her family are annoyed about anti-social behaviour fromadults drinking and swearing in a play area behind their back garden in Hartswood Road, Brentwood..

He confirmed that a live feed to the CCTV control room was monitored 24/7, and that any anti-social behaviour should be reported to the council so officers can target the dates and times of patrols.

But he encouraged her to contact the police if there were incidents such as those involving motorcycles, adding that there was not on-call enforcement.

He added: “There is a view also currently being taken of CCTV across the borough. But we’ve just made quite a significant investment in King George’s playing fields with CCTV as part of our development because we wish to protect that as well as secure the path from the sort of behaviour you’re talking about.”