REDBRIDGE Council has pledged to provide Wanstead and Woodford with CCTV cameras in a move to help cut crime.

The promise comes as the council waits to hear if it has been successful in a second bid to win over £250,000 in Government funding.

In March 2001, after a high profile campaign by the Guardian which was supported by 2,152 members of the public, the Home Office turned down Redbridge Council's application for CCTV saying there was not enough crime in the area to warrant its installation.

But now the council, supported by Woodford Green MP and Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, have pledged to stump up the cash as the crime rate soars.

Council leader Keith Axon, said: "The pledge for CCTV has been made. I do not make promises I cannot keep."

Lee Scott, cabinet member with responsibility for regeneration, said: "We will get relocatable transimittors so CCTV signals can be sent to the control centre in Ilford. We plan to put cameras in Wanstead, Woodford, Barkingside and Gants Hill."

Traders who supported the Guardian's campaign to get closed circuit cameras as a crime deterrent welcomed the council's assurances that CCTV was a certainty.

South Woodford Business Partnership chairman David Niemen, which boosts 350 member businesses, said: "Getting CCTV is a turning point. The Guardian has really helped in getting message across. It has been significant in raising the issue."

But all parties agree that CCTV is useless without proper police back up.

Speaking on a visit on Friday to George Lane, South Woodford, Mr Duncan Smith said: "Crime in the area is just a running sore, it just goes on and on. But CCTV will only prevent crime if the police are there.

"Criminals are getting away by walking, they don't run as they know the police will take ages to arrive. We are getting short changed in this area. Mr Blair's constituency has got some of the lowest crime figures in the country."

Praising the New York style of policing Mr Duncan Smith said: "In New York police pride themselves in being at the scene of a crime within two minutes. They do not rely on intelligence lead policing."

Mr Niemen said: "CCTV is only one a number of things that have to happen to make people feel safe."

July 18, 2002 13:00