Saturday, October 1, 2011

CCTV - Who should pay?

I've got a Porsche! Well no I haven't but if I did and couldn't afford to run it should I therefore ask my wife and friends to contribute to running my Porsche. Oh, I could come up with many ideas as to why other people should pay for the running of my Porsche. I could charge my wife for running her to Tesco or Asda. I could charge her for taking her out to dinner. I could charge my friends whenever they rode in the car or we are going to meet up. My Porsche is mine but everyone else should contribute to the cost of running it otherwise I just can't afford to run it.

Of course I could give up other things I want to do and use this money to pay for my Porsche. I could even work harder and get more money to run my Porsche.

The same is with the CCTV system owned and run by HDC. It is there CCTV system. They decided on it and run the CCTV system. Now they want others to contribute to the running of the system. The Police are the prime target. They use the system to investigate crime. The Police also use privately owned CCTV systems to investigate crime. Should the Police contribute towards these? Well the answer is NO!

Another soft target are the Town Councils. HDC feels they should contribute towards the cost of the HDC owned system as it benefits the Towns. This is literally "Conservative stealth taxation" because the money will come from the Council Taxpayer through the Town Councils. As with the Public Toilets the cost was pushed onto the Town Councils whilst HDC boasted about keeping Council Tax rise to 2.5%.

In the end the CCTV system is my imaginary Porsche. I own it and I have to deal with the costs. Likewise the Councillors on HDC have to deal with the CCTV costs. If they want to keep it then they will have to find the money to keep it going either with cuts elsewhere or upping the Council Tax to pay for it. Blaming others because you don't want to afford it is not good. HDC Councillors must step up and decide CCTV or Council tax rise. Their decision and only their decision.

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