'Spy cameras doing their job' MOVE TO REASSURE PUBLIC AFTER POST-BRAWL PETITION PLEA FAILS.

Byline: ARRYN BUGGINS

RESIDENTS are being reasssured that "spy" cameras are doing their job properly after a plea to move a camera nearer to a pub in Whitnash was rejected, partly on cost grounds.

A petition to move the closed-circuit television camera 300 metres along Coppice Road, was raised by neighbours after they were left "terrified" by a street brawl involving up to 200 young people.

But Warwick District Council says the camera is working fine and there is no need to move it.

Residents wanted the camera, near Anderson Drive, moved closer to the Hod Carrier pub.

But officers said there was no money to pay for the removal costs - about pounds 12,000 - and it would give poorer coverage of the Millennium Garden anyway.

Cllr Bernard Kirton (Ind, Whitnash) claimed: "We have the best camera in Whitnash after the town council spent pounds 2,500 on a special lens. The pictures we get from that camera are amazing. People do not realise how far it can see.

"It was quite a serious incident in Whitnash two months ago where 200 young people came out on the streets after a party and a considerable amount of fighting took place.

"There is a lack of public confidence following that incident and we need to reassure people that the cameras do work, do move and they are being monitored."

Councillors backed his call to look at also using a mobile camera that can be mounted on lampposts and moved to hot spots.

Cllr Richard Tamlin (Lab, Bishop's Tachbrook) said: "We do benefit from a good CCTV system but it cannot protect everybody, everywhere, all of the time."

Cllr Alan Boad (LibDem, Crown) said the public must still phone in with information to help police and camera operators pick up on crime.

He said offenders had become "streetwise" enough to distract camera operators to look the other way, while they committed crimes.