Call for CCTV to stop the street yobs

Apr 24 2008 By Gurdip Thandi

A FURIOUS councillor has called for targeted surveillance to combat growing problems of anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping.

Coun Matthew Ellis, Staffordshire county councillor for Lichfield East, said offenders were making residents' lives a misery by taking drugs outside their homes and with their drunken, yobbish behaviour.

Coun Ellis also said thoughtless people were continually dumping rubbish in the same places just days after authority cleanup teams had cleared them.

And he added he is willing to be accused of advocating a Big Brother state by calling for more CCTV cameras to be erected in identified hotspots.

He said: "I'm bemused at people who deplore the use of this equipment for what they call 'petty crimes'.

"People who are plagued whilst in their own homes by drunken yobs or evidence of drug taking outside their front doors don't consider it to be petty.

"Fly-tipping also may well seem of little consequence to some but it can be soul destroying."

County Coun Ellis is lobbying the County Council to provide funding for surveillance equipment in Tamworth and Lichfield.