Battery powered CCTV

[88V8]

Up our rural lane, there is a spot that is becoming a favourite for fly-tippers.
Last night, a bizarre collection of clothes food (!) bedding furniture lino, perhaps a landlord clearing a former tenant's possessions.
The previous lot was building materials.
Before that might have been a bathroom fitter.

I wonder about the feasibility of covert CCTV to catch a number plate. Would need to be battery powered. Night vision. Transmit to a recorder.
There are sone trees to which we could attach cameras.

Any recommendations please for suitable kit? The Parish Council does not have a huge budget.

V8

[GrahamPlatt]

You might check out wildlife/garden cameras. They tend to be battery powered/ autonomous. But you’d need to hide it carefully and keep it quiet, or you might find another lot of rubbish & a missing camera.

E.g. https://diygarden.co.uk/best-garden-wildlife-cameras/

Sometimes available cheap in e.g. Lidl.

[Redmires]

I bought a Victure wildlife camera recently, cost was about £50. It's used for keeping an eye on what's scurrying round the allotment at night. Easy to use and decent video clips, even in pitch darkness. The video is stored on an SD card. It can't be transmitted to another device and I would think that this type would be much more expensive. It might not be good enough for facial recognition but if mounted near the roadside it should pick up a car/van reg number etc. There are no flashing lights on it or any beeps. It's easily strapped to a tree or similar and they are camouflaged to blend in. The SD card is easily removed to be viewed on a laptop etc.

[monabri]

What do councils use?

Maybe they could lend you a camera or install/site one for you ? Contact the council for advice.

[DrFfybes]

What the others have said - I bought an Apeman wildlife camera for £45. Will run at least a fortnight on 4AA batteries.

Bought to look for wildlife, the repurposed to lookk for vermin in the loft/shed/garage, but also very good for spotting what time the postie left a package on the doorstep.

If it is dark then it won't get number plates more than a few metres away though.

Paul

[AF62]

The Parish Council does not have a huge budget.

Assuming this is public land (otherwise why would the Parish Council be involved) then wouldn’t it be more sensible for the Parish Council to speak to the District Council’s environment team about this.

Any camera on public land is going to need to comply with GDPR - does the Parish Council want to deal with that?

Then if the camera does catch someone fly tipping then unless the Parish Council are going to lead the prosecution themselves they will be handling over the evidence to the District Council’s environment team - and unless they have been previously involved are unlikely to be interested as they had no control over the collection of the evidence but they will be ‘on the hook’ defending it in court.

If you actually want to stop the fly tipping then just buy some signs warning the area is monitored by CCTV for fly tipping and not the camera!

[88V8]

Thankyou all.
Yes, it is a public road.
And although I have a wildlife camera its range is not brilliant even at night, and I think it would get so many triggers the batteries would soon run down.

The adjacent covert where a camera would be sited is private land.
It is legal to install CCTV to combat a specific crime. Not for general surveillance, but against flytipping it would be. Do however take the point about the Council being asked to proceed on the basis of evidence that was 'not invented here'.

V8

[bungeejumper]

The adjacent covert where a camera would be sited is private land.
It is legal to install CCTV to combat a specific crime. Not for general surveillance, but against flytipping it would be. Do however take the point about the Council being asked to proceed on the basis of evidence that was 'not invented here'.

Might not be relevant, but the police were awfully grateful when the CCTV camera on our drive got some chance footage of a couple of burglars who were heading home on their motorbike, after divvying up the spoils in a quiet spot further up the lane. They were both convicted.

So although "general surveillance" probably isn't encouraged (the GDPR thing), the authorities seem happy enough to use whatever footage they can get when a crime's been committed.

BJ

[AF62]

So although "general surveillance" probably isn't encouraged (the GDPR thing), the authorities seem happy enough to use whatever footage they can get when a crime's been committed.

BJ

Ring (owned by Amazon) has entered into arrangements with some police forces for them to give out free Ring camera doorbells and then they get access to the footage if they need it.

On one hand Big Brother is watching you, on the other it is handy to tell the courier where to leave your delivery when you are out.

[didds]

On one hand Big Brother is watching you, on the other it is handy to tell the courier where to leave your delivery when you are out.

Your couriers interact with you? Ours just leave it somewhere in the vicinty of the front drive and hare off in their white van at mach2 in a plume of exhaust !

[AF62]

On one hand Big Brother is watching you, on the other it is handy to tell the courier where to leave your delivery when you are out.

Your couriers interact with you? Ours just leave it somewhere in the vicinty of the front drive and hare off in their white van at mach2 in a plume of exhaust !

They certainly do.

Why on earth would a courier simply leave something on the doorstep unless you have instructed them to do so. If it isn't there when you come back - and for all they know that could be hours, days, or weeks - then any loss if it is stolen is down to them.

[bungeejumper]

Why on earth would a courier simply leave something on the doorstep unless you have instructed them to do so. If it isn't there when you come back - and for all they know that could be hours, days, or weeks - then any loss if it is stolen is down to them.

Ours usually take a photo of the parcel on the doorstep before they clear off. As long as it's the right doorstep, that's their job done.

BJ

[PhaseThree]

Thankyou all.
Yes, it is a public road.
And although I have a wildlife camera its range is not brilliant even at night, and I think it would get so many triggers the batteries would soon run down.

The adjacent covert where a camera would be sited is private land.
It is legal to install CCTV to combat a specific crime. Not for general surveillance, but against flytipping it would be. Do however take the point about the Council being asked to proceed on the basis of evidence that was 'not invented here'.

V8

My guess is that the end result you are looking for is that people stop flytipping. A CCTV doesn't stop this it just means you may be able to track them after the event and this may lead to a prosecution.

The cheap, low tech option is to nail a very visible "Area monitored by CCTV" sign into the nearest tree and hope the problem goes elsewhere. There aren't many miscreants that would take the risk of it not being true.

[didds]

Why on earth would a courier simply leave something on the doorstep unless you have instructed them to do so. If it isn't there when you come back - and for all they know that could be hours, days, or weeks - then any loss if it is stolen is down to them.

well I suspect its a lot to do with they only get paid for deleiveries. Not for turning up and going away with the parcel which they then have to store and attempt redelivery along with the NEXT day's set of parcels. And on what is a very tight schedule in order to make a reasonable hourly wage out of what they have.

That's why.

[AF62]

Why on earth would a courier simply leave something on the doorstep unless you have instructed them to do so. If it isn't there when you come back - and for all they know that could be hours, days, or weeks - then any loss if it is stolen is down to them.

Ours usually take a photo of the parcel on the doorstep before they clear off. As long as it's the right doorstep, that's their job done.

BJ

I would have thought their job was to deliver to the customer, not to abandon it and hope it isn’t stolen before the customer comes home hours, days, or weeks later.

But then if the retailer doesn’t care if their goods go missing (they are not mine until I have signed for them) and is happy to refund or send a replacement, then I don’t care. And if the retailer doesn’t refund the credit card company will.

[bungeejumper]

Ours usually take a photo of the parcel on the doorstep before they clear off. As long as it's the right doorstep, that's their job done.

I would have thought their job was to deliver to the customer, not to abandon it and hope it isn’t stolen before the customer comes home hours, days, or weeks later.

Looks like you missed the ironic smiley that I didn't quite add. The drivers don't care much, but then, how could they? If we're seriously asking a driver who does 150 deliveries a day to take a professional pride in customer satisfaction for each and every one, then we're overworking him. Not to mention adding a couple of hours a day to his already crammed schedule.

So your freelance delivery driver gets maybe 50p for your delivery, less his petrol costs. And if he gets to the end of the day with parcels that he hasn't managed to deliver yet, because Mr Smith had nipped out to the shops when he rang the doorbell and Mrs Miggins was on the loo, then he gets fined by his agency. Not a position I'd like to be in. How about you?

BJ

[Mike4]

You might check out wildlife/garden cameras. They tend to be battery powered/ autonomous. But you’d need to hide it carefully and keep it quiet, or you might find another lot of rubbish & a missing camera.

Or take the opposite approach with a sign saying "NO FLY TIPPING, CCTV MONITORED", backed up with a couple of little decoy red LEDs up in a tree looking for all the world like they might be giving away the presence of a camera.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RED-FLASHING ... %3A2334524

[jfgw]

Or take the opposite approach with a sign saying "NO FLY TIPPING, CCTV MONITORED", backed up with a couple of little decoy red LEDs up in a tree looking for all the world like they might be giving away the presence of a camera.

This looks realistic and cheap, https://www.ultrasecuredirect.com/wireless-wired-dummy-floodlight-wildlife-cctv-cameras/dummy-decoy-cctv-cameras/compact-decoy-cctv-camera-dc-24-002-0241-p283.html. It is just powered by two AAA cells though so it might need regular battery changes. Maybe it could be wired up to a couple of D cells in a separate waterproof box to give about 10 x the life (or splash out on some alkaline Flag cells) - it ought to have a wire coming out of it.

A camera with fake LEDs which don't glow in the dark, or a flashing red light, might not fool everybody.


Julian F. G. W.

[bionichamster]

Several things:

Over the years I have run various CCTV HD’s recorders from 12v leisure batteries for research projects. However if you want something covert this may not be suitable as there are cables and boxes required, plus the cost of the recorder, camera(s) and battery is likely to be painful if it gets Vandalised or stolen. Mind you if you can put the lot up a tree using a ladder it might be safe (you could just have a wire coming down to a battery).

The advantage of this approach is you can use several different types of cameras at same time, so in theory you could use a longer focal length lens set a bit further away and up a tree focused where you think the back of a vehicle may come in to view, and a wider angle camera to capture the general activity.

The big problem is cameras with built in led’s; in my experience they don’t really have great range at night, and if there is vegetation or other obstructions nearby the reflected light can swap the fainter light from further away. But another bonus of the wired 12v battery approach is that you can buy IR Illuminators ( including ones in ‘invisible’ wavelengths that can be positioned to ‘floodlight’ an area of interest. You could use an IR Illuminator in conjunction with a wildlife ‘trail cam’ which might be a good covert option, although battery drain could be excessive. The beauty of trail cams is that the lights usually just come on if movement is detected, although they may miss some movement. It does look like it’s possible to get IR illuminators that have movement detectors too though ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/Security-KKmoon-Illuminator-Infrared-Waterproof/dp/B01M0DBHOB/ref=dp_prsubs_3?pd_rd_i=B01M0DBHOB&psc=1 )

Bh

[88V8]

Thankyou.
There is a move afoot to put up signs.

The lane is hard to protect or surveill. It's about half a mile long, unlit of course, twisty, high hedges. A country lane, but too near a city.
There are at least four areas where litter can be dumped.

OK, well, some options to think about. Perhaps start with the flashing lights. Thankyou.

V8

Moderator Message:
OP question answered.