Earlier this year, Luton Neighbourhood Watch conducted a trial of PIR operated security cameras in South Luton. The aim of the project was to produce high quality day/night still images reviewed by the resident and if needed forwarded to the Police to identify potential offenders following any unlawful incidents.

After installation the camera memory cards would be monitored periodically by the resident or if requested by the Police following any incidents either at the installation site or within the local area to see if any unwanted activity could be observed. Offenders tend to be opportunistic so they are likely to visit more than one property prior to committing a crime. So even if the property affected was not covered by a camera any potential evidence may be identified visiting one that has a camera.

We could not have completed the trial without the enthusiastic support of the NHW Coordinator and residents.

No unlawful activities were reported to us during the trial period but taught us a lot about the quality of images, practicalities of installing the cameras in different properties and the ideal settings for the cameras themselves.

Residents are required to sign an agreement allowing us to loan them the cameras for 4 { four } weeks after which the residential footage is deleted, where possible, witnessed by the resident.

We learned quite a lot about installing the cameras by trial and error. Hopefully we have produced a kit which should allow a unit to be put up almost anywhere.

In order to protect battery life we learned that the cameras need to be set to the PIR mode { movement sensor } only as too many images are produced if they are set to PIR TL { motion sensor and time lapse }

With police officers including the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe suggesting that residents can help the police by using security cameras, we are looking forward to deploying these units to improve safety in the town.