Lighting and CCTV in Parks
Renfrewshire Council · 16 June 2026
Back to Cross Party Sounding Board — 16 June 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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OFFICIAL To: Cross Party Sounding Board On: 16 June 2026 Report by: Director of Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Heading: Lighting and CCTV in Council Parks 1. Summary 1.1 At the Council meeting of 11 December 2025, the following motion was agreed “Renfrewshire Council notes with deep concern the recent high-profile incident in Brodie Park, and child safeguarding concerns elsewhere, and therefore proposes that the Council reviews its CCTV policy with the aim of placing CCTV in all of Renfrewshire’s main parks to assist with the safety and wellbeing of all users." 1.2 Officers have since commenced a process of assessing what the arrangements for CCTV provision across Renfrewshire’s parks and open spaces, however CCTV cannot be looked at in isolation as it would be ineffective without appropriate lighting arrangements. 1.3 This key requirement is one of the main considerations included as part of the Council’s public space CCTV policy that was approved by the Communities and Housing Policy Board in January 2025. The principles of the CCTV Policy are outlined at section 4.4 of this report. 2. Recommendations It is recommended that the Cross Party Sounding Board; 2.1. Notes the report and that discussion at Cross Party Sounding Board is required to progress this issue to a future meeting of the Cross Party Sounding Board.
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OFFICIAL 3. Background 3.1. Renfrewshire’s parks, greenspaces and open spaces are the green hearts of our communities, functioning as important spaces to benefit health and wellbeing, help tackle climate change, and support and enhance nature. These are essential breathing spaces for residents and visitors to Renfrewshire alike. 3.2. They form the character and setting of our towns and villages, provide places for outdoor play, sports and physical activity, social gathering, and civic events in the heart of our communities, and bring economic benefits to the area through tourism. 3.3. The Council has prioritised investment in these open spaces over the last number of years and continues to make a commitment to ensuring access to our parks is maintained for all users of these vital community spaces. 3.4. Public parks are used beyond daylight hours for recreation, commuting, and community events and concerns have been raised regarding safety, accessibility, and antisocial behaviour in unlit /unmonitored areas 3.5 The figures in the table below cover the last 5 years of data from Police and identifies where incidents have been reported in our public park locations. *The figure of 19 relates to manual entry of incidents where a GPS location couldn’t be exactly identified.
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OFFICIAL 3.6 It is worth noting that the park with the most significant number of incidents is Robertson Park, which already benefits from extensive CCTV coverage. It is also worth noting that there has been a positive downward trend in the number of incidents recorded within our public parks 3.7 In terms of other trends, the figure below shows the number of incidents per month, showing a peak in lighter evenings with a significant drop off in the winter months. 3.8 In line with expected usage levels and seasonal patterns, incident peaks were noted as weekends and the lighter summer months. Saturdays are the highest individual day for reported incidents with 117 incidents noted over this 5-year period, which equates to 22% of the overall total. Peak times were noted between 1800hrs and 2100hrs, with the highest individual time noted between 2000hrs and 2100hrs. 3.9 Removing the incidents at Robertson Park, which is already covered by CCTV reduces the number of incidents to 530. Public Nuisance was identified as the most common incident type reported, and along with Disturbance, Noise and Drinking in Public would constitute the most common or frequent low-level youth disorder/ or ASB-related complaint. These incident types combined accounted for a total of 387 out of the overall total of 530 incidents – this equates to around three-quarters (73%) of all incidents being attributable to low-level youth disorder and ASB. 3.10 Furthermore, 387 incidents across 36 parks averages out at nearly 11 incidents per park. Given that the duration of analysis for this report covers a period of 56 months, the overall average for reported incidents of low-level ASB is roughly one incident per park every five months. Clearly there are exceptions and some of the larger and more popular parks would have higher individual monthly averages, however this statistic provides an overall context to the scale of reported incidents which must be regarded as extremely low. 4. Public Space CCTV 4.1. Building public trust and confidence is essential to ensuring that the benefits of any public space CCTV. The use of surveillance systems must be lawful, fair, transparent and meets the other standards set in data protection law. The rights
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OFFICIAL and freedoms of individuals can be greatly affected where decisions are made about them based on particularly intrusive means of processing personal data. 4.2. It is therefore important that the use of surveillance is not seen as the cure to the problems that organisations may face. But instead, a helpful supporting tool where lawful, necessary and proportionate in the circumstances. 4.3. Whilst having public space CCTV in our parks could be a tool to be used for deterring criminal and antisocial behaviour it should not be considered as the immediate solution for solving problems like this and should only be part of a wider community safety approach. 4.4. In January 2025 the Communities and Housing Policy Board approved a public space CCTV installation policy providing clear guidance on the factors considered in assessing any request for public space CCTV. The factors are summarised below; Purpose – Initial evaluation of the request for CCTV to establish what the installation is looking to achieve and if this is realistic / feasible. Data Analysis – Collect and analyse relevant data to understand the area's safety and surveillance needs. This will include Crime Statistics, Hotspots and emerging ASB trends. Current Infrastructure – Identify any existing CCTV resources in the area for example Community Centres, Schools and public buildings. Where there is existing CCTV infrastructure this will result in a low scoring. Site Evaluation – Assess the physical attributes of the site requested and feasibility for CCTV. Is there suitable fibre connectivity, power and lighting in the area. Would the area be obstructed by trees / landscape. Is the location a listed building. Cost Benefit – Analysis Based on the site evaluation identify financial implications of implementing CCTV against expected benefits and any other preventative measures which could be equally effective. Funding Availability – Available Funding Resources or longer-term potential for funding re assessment. Legal & Ethical Considerations – Establish whether the proposed location complies with respect for privacy and ethical standards. 4.5. In Renfrewshire we currently have 66 public space CCTV cameras which are actively monitored by the CCTV control room in the Community Safety Hub. The
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OFFICIAL current operation is close to its limit in terms of active monitoring of cameras, extending usable hours of parks, supporting evening exercise and community activities, improving inclusivity for residents who work late or commute through parks. 4.6. The use of public space CCTV in unlit areas is ineffective in terms of the quality of imagery that is obtained. Should any installation of public space CCTV be carried out, this would require to be done in conjunction with efficient lighting to ensure footage recorded is usable. 5. Lighting in Parks 5.1. Installing streetlighting in conjunction in our public parks could introduce tangible benefits, including; deterring criminal and antisocial behaviour, extending usable hours of parks, supporting community activities, encouraging healthier lifestyles by promoting walking, cycling, and outdoor recreation, and enhancing perception of public spaces as safe and welcoming 5.2 Any deployment of lighting and CCTV within public parks must be done on an evidence-led basis with clear assessment criteria by which to determine whether introduction of public space CCTV would be an effective community safety tool. 5.3 It is likely that the introduction of lighting into these spaces could also bring unintended negative impacts such as; Potential disruption to wildlife and the environment (e.g. bats, nocturnal species) and Increased energy consumption and carbon footprint. 5.4 There are also feasibility considerations as to whether there is a viable power supply, what are the ground conditions like and how accessible lights are for maintenance purposes. 5.5 Any new streetlighting installations would require to be LED in order to maximise energy efficiency and increase colour and facial recognition with consideration given to smart lighting systems which would use motion sensors, with the placement of lighting restricted to key pathways, entrances and activity zones. 6. Financial Implications and Next Steps 6.1. From a revenue and capital perspective the annual streetlighting budgets are already at capacity in terms of what can be delivered both from new installations and ongoing maintenance perspectives.
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OFFICIAL 6.2. For any new lighting installations an alternative funding source would have to be provided in order to deliver any new lighting installations associated with public parks or open spaces. 6.3. In order to support this process a transparent assessment framework would need to be developed along the same principles as the current CCTV policy in order to provide assessment criteria that officers can assess any new requests against. 6.4. Officers will benchmark against other local authority areas in order to develop proposals that could be discussed at a future meeting of the cross party sounding board.
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OFFICIAL Implications of this Report 1. Financial – the proposals within the paper do not contain any financial implications at the current time although this will be determined in future iterations of the report. 2. HR and Organisational Development – none 3. Community Planning – The proposals within the paper do not contain any community planning implications at the current time although this will be determined in future iterations of the report. 4. Legal – none 5. Property/Assets – none 6. Information Technology – none 7. Equality & Human Rights - The recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report. 8. Health and Safety – none. 9. Procurement – none. 10. Risk – none. 11. Privacy Impact – none. 12. Climate Risk – none at the current time although any increase in the lighting estate will increase carbon emissions.. 13 Children’s Rights - This report demonstrates compliance with Article 6 (life, survival and development) and Article 24 (health, water, food, environment) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. List of Background Papers - none Author Gordon McNeil, Director of Environment, Housing & Infrastructure e-mail: gordon.mcneil@renfrewshire.gov.uk