By the early 1990’s, the Thornton Estate in central Hull had justly gained a fearsome reputation. Drug-related crime was endemic, as was prostitution. Unsightly graffiti adorned almost every wall and alleyway, while break-ins, car thefts and mindless acts of vandalism were perpetrated at will almost on a daily basis.
Fed up with their lot, many residents felt they couldn’t take any more smashed windows and looted vehicles. Desperate to rid their ‘home turf’ of unsavoury elements, the group banded together in a volunteer-led charity.
The so-called ‘Goodwin Initiative’ was born in 1993, spawning the Goodwin Resource Centre Association. Armed with funding to the tune of GB pound 400,000 from the City Council, the European Regional Development Fund and the North British Housing Association – part of a GB pound 1 million package aimed at combating crime in Hull – the Centre’s project team then looked for a suitable, sustainable system that could form the bedrock of their ‘legal vigilantism’.
When initial project design began last February, Goodwin’s project manager John Marshall was clear about what he wanted: a digital surveillance network that could gather information from around the Thornton community and subsequently feed it – quickly and easily – to the local police.
To realise his goal, Marshall contacted several British system manufacturers, including C>Ways (the IT system and data network designer), Mase Integration and Communications (designer and installer of wireless networks), Alcatel (the network switch and routing concern), software designer Farsight and CCTV specialists Video Controls (VCL) and Sentry Alarms. Scheme design was finished in May 2000, with installation in June.
What the team has come up with is pretty special – the ‘country’s first’ Internet-based CCTV system, and one that’s set to revolutionise community surveillance across the nation…and perhaps beyond.
CCTV on the Thornton Estate
The system makes use of tiny cameras disguised as street lamps or hidden on building facades. These beam back digital, ‘real time’ pictures to a bank of computers at the control centre – either by radio, laser or microwave transmission. Operators can then zoom in and track suspects. The resulting, crystal clear images may be e-mailed direct to the police over the Internet, either catching criminals in the act or – if the police are sharp enough – preventing an incident altogether.
Film clips are stored as digital files, and can be located and replayed within seconds.
Far easier than traditional analogue systems.
The development team at Scarborough-based C>Ways was responsible for the wireless IP network design (the benefit of this technology as opposed to traditional CCTV being its scalability, flexibility and relatively low revenue costs). Mase was also involved at an early stage, helping with the network’s physical and logistical configuration. One of the main aims here was to ensure that CCTV pictures would have priority over and above other, less important traffic such as Internet access and general data networking. Thankfully, this has been achieved using prioritisation on both the switchers and routers.
Routing needed to be wire speed, ensuring that bottlenecks or blockages will not occur during those times when images are being transferred to the central server. Given the desire for speed, Alcatel was brought on board to install its Omnicore 5010’s network using OSPF. Within the OSPF there are three areas transporting camera images over the IP backbone to a central server at the local monitoring centre (so that they may be stored for police/security team reviews). When in operation, the switchers and routers physically link cameras on and around tower blocks on the estate with various council locations.
In essence, then, what you have is a wireless Intranet service which is used to attach Ethernet-based video servers to high quality CCTV cameras strategically positioned around the Thornton Estate.
For its part, Sentry Alarms was originally brought on board by Kingston Communications (the now sold-off telecommunications giant serving Hull, since the city has no BT landline system). Its remit? To try and resolve a problem with the quality of camera images – and the necessary level of coverage – throughout the Thornton Estate.
Dennis Wheeldon, Sentry’s technical services manager, was assigned to the project. "The quality of camera images both during the day and at night was paramount," says Wheeldon. "You must start off with a high resolution image if you’re to have any chance of finishing with a reasonable one." In the end, Wheeldon opted to use Microspheres hardware developed by VCL.
On top of designing the system’s ‘front end’, Sentry is also taking care of the monitoring function. The monitoring station itself is a highly secure environment staffed by operators with years of experience in the guarding sector, all of whom are working under a strict Code of Practice devised by Wheeldon, the Thornton project’s security manager.
On a day-to-day basis, the Sentry operators are tasked with directing the camera images and operating all monitoring software.
Results on the ground
The wireless system has just completed a five-month pilot trial that began on 14 July last year – and the results are mightily impressive.
In combination with an increased Humberside Police presence on the ground, total crime on the Thornton Estate has been reduced by 45%. Meantime, statistics produced by an independent evaluation team suggest that car crime is down by 80%, and robbery by 68%. Violent attacks against innocent individuals have dropped by 30%, while general criminal damages are down by 60%. Whichever way you cut it, that’s progress.
Estimates suggest that the reduction in crime has saved more than 300 people from being the victim of an offence, while the new system has reduced overall crime costs by GB pound 2.1 million (a figure based on police and court time, insurance and potential resident losses).
In addition, the new system has been credited with displacing more than 100 prostitutes who had plagued the area for many years, and has made life much tougher for drug dealers to ply their health-threatening trade.
"This new CCTV system represents a massive step forward in surveillance technology," adds John Marshall. "It will allow communities across the UK to fight back against crime." VCL’s managing director Phil Burton adds: "The reductions in crime over the trial period are quite remarkable. Any local authority looking to overcome similar crime problems need only read these statistics to see what kind of results are possible." Sentry’s Dennis Wheeldon adds: "We have already used microwave transmission for single camera installations, but never on a multiple installation such as this one. It was a case of learning as we went along. From a management point of view this was a seamless project, with no civil disturbance to building fabrics and immediate crime reduction." The installation has also received much praise from Westminster, with cabinet minister Lord Falconer having visited the estate at the behest of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Lessons to be learned
What are the lessons to be learned by security managers, though? "Whether we like it or not, technology is fast outstripping the manager’s basic level of knowledge," claims Dennis Wheeldon. "All managers and their site officers must get to grips with electronic systems sooner rather than later. At the moment, the Internet is not a totally secure environment, but it will get better." Indeed, companies like the Argus Systems Group are developing computer security systems such as PitBull that are claimed to be "virtually impenetrable".
Perhaps the last word should go to John Marshall. "What we’ve managed to design and put in place in a relatively short timescale is pretty remarkable," opines Marshall.
"Our scheme represents the future of CCTV," he adds. "Given its success, we’ve already applied to the Home Office for a GB pound 7 million grant so that we might extend the scheme to other estates throughout the city." Let’s hope the Thornton team is indeed successful in its bid. Some day, all community surveillance systems will be designed and managed this way.
