Bexley Council chiefs were grilled at a meeting earlier this week over the borough’s use of CCTV after a petition called for it to be “live monitored.”

In 2016 the council made a contentious decision to no longer watch cameras live, instead having footage available to police as and when it is needed.

The council maintain the cameras, but pressure has been put on them by a new petition that has been backed by 1,600 people to reinvest in monitoring the cameras.

At the last Council meeting of this term, questions were raised to the leader of the council over its use of CCTV.

Leader of the opposition Daniel Francis said: “I received a six-page letter from former members of monitoring staff. It says when staff were made redundant it fell to the police. It was a role they did not want to take on because of a lack of training.

“When an incident occurs monitors would show all cameras when required, police have access to just two monitors. We’ve got a purpose built control room that is not used.

“Will the leader accept the growing concern that live monitoring should be reinstated?”

Labour proposed reinvesting £250,000 in monitoring 225 cameras across the borough in a budget amendment that was defeated in March.

Cllr Peter Craske answered on behalf of the leader and said: “The commitment the Labour group gave at the last budget meeting for CCTV was to take it away from the police, set up a new council department and employ people for 12 months.

“How anyone can think that is sensible is beyond me. It was only announced before the election and we won’t hear from it after May 4 – it’s a waste of time and a waste of money, it’s not serious.

“It’s not a bad thing we have low levels of crime. To have one of the lowest crime rates in London is something we should be proud of. We as a community work together to keep it that way – from neighbourhood watch meetings to safer neighbourhood panels.

“How many people go to their local ward safer neighbourhood panels? I don’t remember seeing anybody suddenly concerned with CCTV at the meetings.”

The leader of the council, Teresa O’Neill, said previously that monitoring is done by the police for their purposes as and when they need it, making it the best way to allocate resources.

Cllr O’Neill added: “The recordings are also kept for a period of time so that they can be used to solve crime that isn’t seen at the time – even when we had staff monitoring they didn’t see everything & it wasn’t being recorded in the same way then – as indeed it was during the Northumberland Heath incident which is the best example of how the current system works well for our residents.”

In 2016 a brawl erupted in Northumberland Heath involving 100 youths that lead to two teenagers being rushed to hospital.

The petition, organised by Erith resident Chris Brown, will be delivered to the new council after the elections in May.