Katy Gordon

On Sunday 21st September, Katy Gordon, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Glasgow North, called on Glasgow City Council to pay back £530 to local residents, to cover the cost of residents’ association CCTV cameras which were used to monitor peaceful protests at Wyndford Primary for three days this summer.

Speaking during a debate on civil liberties at the party’s Federal conference, Katy highlighted the Council’s use of cameras owned by Cube Housing Association, and paid for by local residents, to watch parents protesting at the closure of the school. Katy said:

‘…The schools closed at the end of term, on Friday 26th June. As one last symbolic act of defiance, about half a dozen parents occupied Wyndford school, once all the children had left.

I received a call the following Monday from Bill, the Chair of the Residents’ Association, worried that the cameras that the Housing Association owns, and are paid for by the residents to protect their own homes from crime, had been turned towards the school.

Only after complaints to Cube Housing were the cameras turned back towards the flats. But residents had been without the protection that they pay for, for 3 whole days…It is completely unacceptable for a public body to use cameras which have been put in place to protect the local community, to breach the civil liberties of members of that same community.’

Katy and the residents of Wyndford have still to receive a satisfactory answer from the Council as to why they used cameras that they do not own to monitor a peaceful protest at the expense of the safety of local homes, and a Freedom of Information request has been submitted.