Ealing Council rubbish Beanz Meanz Finez story

'Half-baked' story on camera sensors in tins branded sensationalist

Local and national newspapers have had a field say with Ealing Council's plan to use CCTV to catch envirocriminals. Dubbed the great 'baked bean' camera scandal, the scheme has been denounced as yet another example of a 'big brother' mentallity.

However, Leader of Ealing Council Jason Stacey has spoken out on EalingToday's forum stating that, “Today's Evening Standard was a work of pure journalistic fantasy.”

It was reported that Ealing Council cameras would be disguised in a range of ways – anything from tin cans to house bricks will be linked up to the council's CCTV control centre. The targets are 'enviro-criminals' – anyone who leaves out black bags when they shouldn't or let their contents spill onto the pavement. The punishment? On-the-spot fines of up to £1,000.

The papers also stated that the cameras would be installed before 'the change in collections from weekly to fortnightly' at a cost of about £200 each.

But Cllr Stacey hit back saying, “We announced a few weeks ago following residents consultation that we were remaining on a weekly collection and we ruled out moving to a fortnightly collection. This remains the case.”

While the main targets are large-scale fly-tippers and graffiti vandals residents who fail to abide by refuse collection times will also be in the frame with the movement sensor activated cameras.

Said Stacey, “Yes we do carry out CCTV operations on areas where there is a particular problem with vandalism, graffiti and/or flytipping. This has happened for a while now. These will continue and we strongly support these operations. However, for the Standard to suggest that we are seeking to monitor all households to see if they put the rubbish out on the right day is both absurd and impractical.”

Will Brooks, the Tory councillor responsible for environment and transport, was reported to have told all leading national newspapers, and London's Evening Standard, that "anyone who broke the rules on collection would be considered to be a fly-tipper.”

Stacey called this ludicrous, "You may be interested to know that the Evening Standard did not contact Cllr Brooks to discuss this with him or ask for any quote. Strangely the news editor seems too busy to speak with Cllr Brooks when he rang to ask why such a quote has been fabricated!"

March 21, 2007