A report to Tuesday's committee counts 820 cameras, 5,770 incidents and 456 arrests captured in a year. Two in five were spotted by operators, not reported.

Redbridge Council runs 820 public space CCTV cameras, and in the year to August its operators recorded 5,770 incidents.

The figures come from a report to the Safe Redbridge Committee, which meets on Tuesday 8 September. It is the first of five sessions in which councillors will examine the CCTV service before writing a report with recommendations.

The number that stands out is not the camera count. It is that two in five incidents were found by operators watching, rather than reported to them.

The year in numbers

The report covers September 2025 to August 2026. The service runs a control room 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Measure Total
Incidents recorded 5,770
Proactive CCTV observations 2,307
Hotspot observations 21,256
Hotspot incidents identified 1,498
Arrests captured on CCTV 456
Police reviews supported 833
Evidence packages supplied 498
Environmental crime referrals 584

The report says approximately 40% of all recorded incidents were proactively identified by CCTV officers. The arithmetic backs it: 2,307 of 5,770 is 40.0%.

That is the difference between a camera network and a staffed one. A recording system produces footage after the fact. This one produced 456 arrests that operators watched happen, and 833 occasions on which the police came back and asked to see something.

How Redbridge CCTV incidents were identified, September 2025 to August 2026 Bar chart showing that of 5,770 incidents recorded by Redbridge CCTV between September 2025 and August 2026, 2,307 or 40 per cent were proactively identified by CCTV officers watching, and 3,463 or 60 per cent arrived by other routes such as reports from police, partners or the public. Source: Redbridge CCTV Service presentation to the Safe Redbridge Committee, September 2026. Two in five incidents were spotted, not reported All 5,770 incidents recorded by the Redbridge CCTV control room, September 2025 to August 2026, by how they were identified. 2,307 Proactive observations by CCTV officers 3,463 Identified by other routes 40% 60% 820cameras 59redeployable 456arrests captured 833police reviews 498evidence packages Source: Redbridge CCTV Service presentation to the Safe Redbridge Committee, September 2026. The 3,463 figure is the balance of the 5,770 total. Graphic by Ilford Today
The council's own count of how its CCTV incidents began. The proactive share is the argument for a staffed control room rather than cameras that only record.

Where the cameras are

Alongside the 820 fixed cameras, the service runs 59 redeployable 4G cameras that can be moved to a problem location. Coverage is a mix of static and pan-tilt-zoom units.

The report names the town centres and streets it covers:

  • Ilford town centre and Ilford Lane
  • Barkingside, Gants Hill and Newbury Park
  • Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath
  • South Woodford and Woodford
  • Manford Way

On top of that it lists cameras on three housing estates, Orchard, Tiptree and Ferways, and at four supported accommodation sites: Aubrey House, Ryedale Court, Jason Lee House and St Giorgios. The report states there is coverage across all wards.

What the control room is used for

The service works with the Metropolitan Police, the council’s Community Protection Task Force, the Ilford BID, community safety, housing, licensing, trading standards, enforcement, parking services and the emergency services.

Three uses in the report are worth pulling out, because they are not the ones people assume.

Missing people. Fifty missing person cases were reported to the CCTV service in the year. Ten of those people were located.

Violence against women and girls. The service recorded support for 60 VAWG incidents.

Road collisions and insurance. Cameras captured 259 road traffic collisions, and the service processed 134 requests from insurers and solicitors. If you have been in a collision on a main road in the borough, there may be footage of it.

The cases the report puts forward

The report includes case studies from the year. Two are worth reporting, with the caveat that an arrest is not a conviction and the report gives no court outcomes.

The first is a safeguarding case. Acting on information from the Metropolitan Police, a CCTV officer located a child of about two alone on a second-floor balcony. The officer watched the child climb onto the balcony wall and hang from the edge, giving continuous updates to police. When the child fell, attending officers and a member of the public caught them from the balcony below. The report says this helped prevent a potentially fatal outcome.

The second is a violent disorder in Goodmayes involving up to nine men, one of them carrying a stick-type weapon. A CCTV officer saw it start, tracked the group along Goodmayes Avenue and directed officers to them as they arrived. Six people were arrested at the scene and two more later, eight in total. The report lists the offences as affray and offensive weapon offences.

What the councillors have not seen yet

This is session one of five, and the running order tells you what has not been examined. The remaining meetings are scheduled to cover:

  • technical infrastructure, maintenance and limitations
  • relocatable cameras, deployments and legislation
  • future technology, AI, drones and service development
  • a final report with recommendations

The word doing the work there is “limitations”. A count of 820 cameras is a count of cameras installed, not cameras working, and the report published for Tuesday does not say how many are in service, what the network costs to run, or how much of it is at the end of its life. That is meeting two.

The AI and drones session is the one to watch after it. Any move in that direction would be a change in what the borough is being watched with, and it is on the committee’s own timetable.

What it means for you

  • The cameras are staffed, not just recording. Two in five incidents last year were found by an operator watching a screen, which is why an incident in a covered area may already be known before anyone calls it in.
  • If you were in a road collision on a covered road, footage may exist. The service handled 134 insurance and solicitor requests in the year.
  • If a camera has moved onto your street, it is probably one of the 59 redeployable 4G units, which the council can site where it wants.
  • If you want to raise something, the Safe Redbridge Committee meets at 7pm on Tuesday 8 September, and public question time is item 4. Note the venue: it is not the Town Hall but the Ley Street Depot, 531 Ley Street, Ilford, IG2 7QZ. The last item on the agenda, a CCTV service showcase, is closed to the public.
  • The cost is not in this report. Neither is the number of cameras actually working. Both are scheduled for the next session.

Sources

  • Redbridge CCTV Service presentation, Safer Redbridge, September 2026, for the 820 cameras, the 59 redeployable cameras, the September 2025 to August 2026 statistics, the coverage list, the partner list, the safeguarding and collision figures, the case studies and the schedule of future meetings.
  • Safe Redbridge Committee agenda, 8 September 2026 for the meeting date, the Ley Street Depot venue, public question time and the closed final item.

Percentages are calculated from the totals published in the council’s report. No individual is named here, and none of the arrests described has been reported as having reached a court outcome.