We’re furious after CAMERAS were put up in our public park – our kids are being spied on and want them taken down now
ANGRY residents have lashed out after secret spy cameras were installed in a public park, monitoring their every move.
Parents were left disgusted and campaigners appalled after devices were scurried away in a box near a gateway – filming locals, including kids, without their knowledge.
Livid residents slammed Cotham School for installing the cameras in Stoke Lodge Park, Bristol – but the establishment insist they are for security along a fence.
Mechanic Rob Wilton, 44, says the cameras are filming “precious family moments” as he plays with daughters Lois, seven, and Elsie aged five.
He said: “We’ve taught our children to ride their bikes here, we’ve played in the snow and had picnics in the summer.”
A campaign group called We Love Stoke Lodge was set up to oppose the new fence – thrown up three years ago – because it deprives residents a public right of way across the land.
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It gathered a petition from 4,500 people calling on the council to block the fence’s construction.
The simmering tensions are part of an 11-year battle to have the park protected by Town or Village Green status.
The Grade II listed school building and 26 acres of parkland in the leafy part of Bristol was bought by the city council in 1947.
For more than 60 years the parkland was a place of refuge for generations of people young and old.
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But all that changed in August 2011 when the land was leased for 125 years to an academy which took over running Cotham School.
Cotham School claims the cameras – near Stoke Lodge House and a children’s play park – protect the new perimeter fence.
But campaigners argue this is not the case as they point at the field and slam the need for 24/7 surveillance as “not a proportionate or justified response”.
Helen Powell, 52, from the group, said: “The school believes that they have a right to ride rough-shod over the law.
“This is obviously a matter of serious concern for all users of the playing fields whose right to respect for private and family life has been compromised without their knowledge.”
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Fuming residents want the school to prove the cameras are legal under the Regulation of Investigatory Power Act (RIPA) 2000 which authorises an organisation to carry out surveillance on the public.
Residents say Cotham School’s Data Protection Impact Assessment for CCTV states the ‘school will not use covert cameras’ and ‘all camera locations will be clearly visible’.
And they want the cameras down as soon as the application for the Town or Village green is granted.
Retired businessman David Mayer, 73, was one of the first people to take up the fight to have the park changed to a Town or Village Green.
He claimed: “We believe that they are doing this because they have in mind some future development of the playing field.”
Meanwhile campaigner Emma Burgess, 49, added: “The cameras are recording users of the field including young children and families, teenagers socialising, sports club members and others.”
They ought to be aware that when an Englishman’s dander is up he is a dangerous animal
Chris Harries, resident
Chris Harries, 70, whose house overlooks the park is a regular financial backer to the campaign group, warned: “They ought to be aware that when an Englishman’s dander is up he is a dangerous animal.”
It’s estimated the school has spent more than £500,000 on legal fees in battling the campaigners who say the money could have been better spent on children’s education.
Cotham School admitted installing the covert cameras in January this year.
The claim there were more than 25 separate reports of criminal damage of the school’s property at Stoke Lodge between July 2018 and December 2021.
Avon and Somerset Police “suggested the use of either wildlife cameras or covert CCTV monitoring of the crime hotspots” to end the criminal activity, the school added.
And they said the school updated its own Data Protection Impact Assessment for CCTV to ‘remove any sections relating to not using covert CCTV, to allow the use of these cameras’.
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A spokesperson added: “This disappointingly takes vital school funds away from the education of our students to cover the cost of the necessary repair…
“To ensure that our students have an offsite sports provision which is able to be secured and remains fit for purpose.”