A Bristol school has defended its use of covert surveillance cameras in a public park, saying it installed them to catch people damaging their controversial fence. But local residents and campaigners fighting the school’s takeover of the open space have cried foul, after discovering the cameras.
Cotham School said it installed the hidden cameras at the suggestion of the police after repeated criminal damage on the fence around its playing fields at the Stoke Lodge open space in Stoke Bishop. And the school claimed the cameras have worked - and captured ten separate incidents of the same person damaging the fence.
But a campaign group of local residents who use the Stoke Lodge open space have cried foul, and after discovering the cameras said it was a ‘matter of grave concern’ that the school had installed them. The group, called We Love Stoke Lodge, said the cameras were not a ‘proportionate or justified’ response to the continuing issues with the open space and the controversial fence.
