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NEWS: CCTV launched in Holylands
A pilot scheme of 12 CCTV cameras in Holylands was introduced yesterday at a press conference led by Belfast City Council. They will be installed over a 4 day period at a cost of £100,000, and will operate through a wireless network which will be monitored 24/7 from Musgrave Police Station and the emergency centre at the City Hall on St. Patricks Day.
BY RUTH MAGENNIS AND SARAH WRIGHT
For coverage of St Patrick’s Day keep clicking on to www.thegown.org.uk
The cameras are just one initiative attempting to reduce crime and are not intended to be a permanent feature, but will be evaluated after a year. Cormac Hopkins from Wired Up Solutions, the designers of this high –tech equipment, revealed plans for them to be eventually scattered throughout the city and redeployed to particular hotspots in a matter of hours to deter criminal and anti-social behaviour and provide evidence for any prosecutions.
This comes as no surprise to the community following Sp. Patrick’s Day last year which exacerbated the need for increased security in order to protect all residents and students. Suzanne Wylie, head of Environmental Health for Belfast City Council asserted that the scheme was in the pipeline for years and was not as a direct result of the events last year. Of the 12 cameras that will be installed, only 7 will be in place for March 17th but there will be PSNI and wardens present with mobile cameras.
One local resident, Maura Doherty, who has suffered from anti-social behaviour in the area, feels that “there is one law for students and one for us” with unfair allowances being made for students due to their potential careers. In her opinion, the University campaign against student misconduct is far too lenient and that they should emphasise that anti-social behaviour will definitely affect your degree, rather than might, as the slogan suggests. She added that landlords should take responsibility as well as students and universities. There is a general consensus that it is a minority causing trouble in this student area, and that those that don’t cause trouble will have nothing to hide and will benefit from an increased sense of security.
Queen’s has already invested £75,000 to provide wardens for the area to ensure the safety of those living in Holylands, and the CCTV will provide additional protection for students. VP Community Laura Hawthorne has emphasised how hard those in the Students’ Union have been working with residents through the Community Affairs Unit and that the purpose of the cameras is not to catch students out as they are in plain view. The Council reassured residents that the cameras will not violate their privacy and that new technology will detect and block out windows. However, any students with fears over privacy can contact Laura at her office in the Union.
Tags: CCTV, Gown, holylands, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, Ruth Magennis, Sarah Wright, student, The Gown
This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 5:33 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Good idea! Weed out all the scumbags in The Holylands!
Wardens Out, PSNI Out, Camera’s Out.
Leave the students alone. Thousands of Students are forced into crap housing in slums and then anyone’s surprised when they try and enjoy themselves? I think the Holylands has a great community spirit among the student community.
The cops are filming us with these cameras and then bring cameras out with them and on the vans. But you’re not allowed to film them. Their monopoly is not only on violence it seems.
http://www.facebook.com/belfastholylands
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY
We should all get up to some mad stuff in the middle of the night. Pretending to be zombies, walking down a street backwards or anything else to make the people watching the cameras freak out.
Or possibly a mass “film-the-police” in response. They love that. As this guy shows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/21/photographer-films-anti-terror-arrest
sometimes i wonder if the local political representitves have lost the plot in south belfast.
they continually back the local population of the holylands. when all the cars were burnt out a few years ago was alex maskey, who’s from west belfast btw, out shouting about disgraceful behaviour? no.
there’s easily 5000 sinn fein votes amongst students in the holylands yet sinn fein continuously back the “long-term” residents.
i have sympathy for those who have lived there for forty or fifty years but realistically anyone who moved in there in the last 15 years knew what they were getting themselves into.
Nearly 700 paedophiles and sex offenders are now being monitored across the North, it was revealed today.
The rising level of offenders living within the community includes four the authorities believe pose a high risk of trying to inflict serious harm on others.
And it does not include almost 80 more who are either still in jail for their predatory crimes or else facing prosecution over suspected attacks.
With the Northern Ireland Sex Offender Strategic Management Committee’s annual report confirming south Belfast has the biggest proportion under scrutiny, a top police officer insisted the best possible safety checks were in place.
Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, the Committee’s Chairman, said: “Protection of the public is the top priority for all of the agencies involved and I can assure the public that there is now a well-defined system in place, coupled with real commitment to working together, to make Northern Ireland’s homes, streets and communities safer for all our families.”
Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/archives/2007/0807/ireland/almost-700-paedophiles-monitored-in-the-north-322449.html#ixzz0i75MNYJW
these are the people your local representitives are supprting in the Holylands – not the students
Hopefully the cameras will make the area safer for students and permanent residents.
All I know is it wasn’t the long term residents who started all the trouble last year on St Patricks Day.
Regardless of who continued it it was students who started it and students must take the blame.
Don’t be so sure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nchc05Hv2c
http://www.facebook.com/BelfastHolylands
Belfast Holylands,I’m curious… what exactly does that video on youtube prove???
These may come in handy next time someone gets mugged or raped in the holylands.
Because it seems there are no police about the holylands or any other student area in belfast at the early hours of the morning when these things generally happen. Yet there are plenty during the day when nothing’s happening (and I’m not talking about on st paddy’s they’re there a lot of other days). And they just dander about, doing nothing, well… possibly scratching their behinds.