Issue - meetings

Report of the Cabinet Member Development and Safety

The Mayor referred Members to the process for dealing with petitions as laid down in Appendix 2 and then invited the petitioner, Mr Zach Bromfield to address Council.

Mr Bromfield firstly addressed the issues that were inherent in the petition taking shape. He explained that he had incorrectly assumed that an attack on a teenage girl in Brunswick Street, which had prompted him to start the petition, had taken place on 2^nd May this year but it had actually taken place last year. He then explained that he had chosen to start this petition on Change.org instead of the council’s website because he felt that he would reach more people, including families outside of Cheltenham concerned for relatives or friends living in the community and therefore believed this would improve the petition’s chances of success. He also stated that the information used for this petition was solely from the Gloucestershire Echo. However, he had subsequently received information from the Police that the incidents of crime in these areas differed to what was mentioned in the petition. He provided members with the details of these incidences. Crime had been reduced overall thanks to the actions of Streetwatch and other actions taken by the community to assist crime-prevention. Mr Bromfield said that having consulted with council officers and Streetwatch he recognised that in a time of austerity, prioritisation was inevitable and therefore he intended to focus on Brunswick Street as the main area to have CCTV placed. He felt that it was wrong that residents living in St Paul’s should feel anxious about crime in their area and that he had not intended to give places he had mentioned a bad representation as an unsafe place to be nor damage the University’s reputation.

He explained that he had started this petition because of recent concerns he had developed over the security measures placed in certain areas of Cheltenham. Brunswick Street in particular had, according to fellow students, gained a bad reputation as an unsafe street to walk down at night. He had learned via the Gloucestershire Echo that there were other areas vulnerable to violent crime and in some of their interviews, there were several concerns raised over the choice to implement CCTV in these areas as a way to deter or assist the police in tackling violent crime.

Mr Bromfield believed that CCTV placed in Cheltenham, or at least Brunswick Street, would be a good idea, for several reasons as supported by Streetwatch:

·         CCTV would help deter criminals and also ensure their detection. The Brunswick Street area next to Matalan is considered a desolate spot, lacking overlooking residential windows and therefore a lack of witnesses.

·         CCTV can also be used therefore to disprove alibis criminals will use, for example that they say they went down one alleyway when the footage can show that they went down a different way. 

·         CCTV would make people feel more secure when walking down certain areas of Cheltenham at night.

·         It would be an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8