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People’s Post
A technician installs one of the Wynberg Improvement District CCTV cameras.
WYNBERG
‘Eye in sky’ to deter crime NETTALIE VILJOEN NETTALIE.VILJOEN@MEDIA24.COM
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cers on foot and two patrol vehicles. Covering such a big area with a relatively small group can be challenging. With cameras, we have another 11 sets of eyes on the ground,” Lohrentz says. The controllers are linked via radio and cellphone to patrollers. The control room also has a structured communication line with the police service in Wynberg, ensuring information can be passed down immediately. Slabbert explains that the real-time monitoring by the control room ensures that WID’s foot patrol teams, patrol vehicles, law enforcement officers and the police know what is happening, when it is happening. “The ability to direct resources to an incident while the crime or by-law contravention is in progress means, firstly, that we have a multiplier effect. Our teams now attend to many more incidents in a day than before because they are not coming across these by chance but through the direction of the eye in the sky. The quick response also means a bet-
ter chance of making an arrest or issuing a fine,” Slabbert says. The WID area is already served by licence plate recognition (LPR) cameras installed at key access points. Lorentz says that the newly installed pan–tilt–zoom cameras (PTZ) provide the added benefit that the cameras can be operated by a controller to pan around and zoom in. “The quality of the cameras and the recorded footage provide valuable evidence when crimes are prosecuted,” he says. Liz Brunette, the councillor for ward 62, commends WID’s actions in implementing a CCTV camera network in the area. “The latest technology CCTV cameras provide information about criminality that was previously not available in the area of Wynberg covered by the WID. As a result, the response time to address criminal behaviour and City bylaw transgressions has been escalated, with the City’s law enforcement and the police assisting and benefitting,” she says.
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lthough it has only been about a month since the first of a projected 11 CCTV cameras came online in Wynberg, the positive impact the surveillance network is having on crime reduction in the area can already be felt. Roelou Slabbert, the chair of Wynberg Improvement District (WID), says CCTV networks have been extremely successful in other city improvement districts. “We hope to achieve the same, and early indications are that the effect is immediate and big. We are confident that crime will be reduced and public order increased in Wynberg,” he adds. WID’s long-term aim is to revitalise the CBD of Wynberg by creating an urban village environment that is safe and clean. The
boundary of the improvement district includes properties within the CBD on either side of Main Road from Wetton Road (north) to Constantia Main Road (south) as well as Wynberg Village. The decision to introduce a sophisticated CCTV network, valued at R550 000, to the area in support of the existing public safety and urban management activities was approved at last year’s WID annual general meeting. However, due to the national lockdown, the installation of the cameras could only proceed in September. To date, nine cameras have been installed at key locations within the area covered by WID. The remaining two cameras are scheduled to be up and running by the end of October. Gene Lohrentz, CEO of Geocentric – the management company of WID – says from the moment the first camera was installed, qualified CCTV controllers began monitoring the footage, 24/7, from a central control room. “At present, we have six public patrol offi-
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