RESIDENTS have raised privacy concerns over plans to install CCTV cameras in their neighbourhood. The residents of Broadgreen have been calling for CCTV cameras to be installed in alleyways to stop fly-tippers dumping piles of rubbish.

As reported in the Adver, the council won a £40,000 grant for six cameras in October last year.

But following meetings with the council and police, resident Karen Leakey said the plans are drifting away from targeting fly-tippers, to “spying” on the whole community.

Mrs Leakey, 45 and chair of the community council, said: “If they’re around on the streets, they’re going to be monitoring people.

"Not that anyone has anything to hide.

And some people will be happy the cameras are in the area.

“But we don’t want to be spied on this way.

“The CCTV in the alleys is a really good idea. We’ve suffered from fly-tipping for the last 20 years.

“But I don’t think it needs to go in the streets.

“I think it’s coming in a little underhandedly. We don’t need to be kept an eye on.

“To have CCTV down in the streets would give the wrong impression of our area.

“I’ve worked for 11 years trying to make the area better.”

She said both Mark Walker, the council’s Town Centre Cluster Lead, and central beat manager PC Michael Diffin have now told her the cameras won’t just for alleyways, but will overlook the main streets from lamp-posts.

And if criminal behaviour is spotted the footage can be passed to police. Among the places suggested for the cameras is the Broadgreen play area.

The cameras are set to be installed in March, but it has not been finally decided where they will go.

The police said the council was leading on the project, and is the best person to speak to.

A spokesman for Swindon Council said: "We are planning to install cameras in Broad Green to monitor the areas where fly-tipping occurs, specifically at the request of the local community, who have asked us at a number of community meetings to tackle illegal waste dumping.

"The cameras have cost over £30,000 and will be delivered in the next couple of weeks.

"They were ordered because we consulted very widely in the area, explained how the cameras would be used, and there was widespread support for using them.

"They are the most effective way to deter or detect fly-tippers, who are blighting the area for the people who live there.

"We will have an open public meeting for the community to discuss this further before a final decision is made.

"If the decision is ultimately not to put them in Broad Green, we do have other uses for them, but it will not make tackling fly-tipping in the area any easier than it is now."

But Geoff Ricks, 64, said there the area’s rubbish woes need an immediate solution. He lives in Southsea, but regularly visits his 90-year-old mother in Broad Street, and says the back of her house is full of rubbish.

He said: “When I would do is clean up what they’ve got already, so you can see what’s being done.

"Otherwise how can you tell what’s been added to the piles?

“CCTV might solve the problem, but it exists right now.

“You need to clean up the mess already there, before disease and pestilence are rife.”

There will be another meeting at 7.30pm on Wednesday, March 2, at the Broadgreen Centre in Salisbury Street, at which CCTV and fly-tipping will be discussed.