We reside in the Loevenstein area. This is where we chose to live, work, relax, raise our kids and move about in a safe and crime free neighbourhood. We believe that this is still possible despite crime trends in our city, but only if we all share this vision and join hands to drive crime out of our neighbourhood. Loevenstein Crime Watch offers a structure and a platform from which we as normal residents can step forward to stop these criminal activities and play our own special role in fighting crime.
Our Mission is therefore:
To make the area of Loevenstein crime free by collaborating with the S.A. Police Service, City of Cape Town departments and other Stakeholders.
One trend that we are acutely aware of and concerned about is that crime is not just increasing in actual statistics, but also in sophistication. Whilst batons and bicycles were appropriate crime prevention tools at a time, we must all take the fight against crime to the next level and use the latest technology to our advantage.
After many months of intense solution research and costing the Loevenstein community accepted the original proposed LPR & CCTV solution for future crime prevention at our 5 June 2014 AGM.
The response of the Loevenstein community to this exiting crime prevention technology was less encouraging with only 19% of the required funds collected in the first 12 months. It was apparent that a much more intensive marketing drive was required and that the original design was not affordable to the Loevenstein Community. The LCW Committee revisited the functional requirements of the original project to reduce the overall project cost to the basic LPR functionality. After wide consultation and consideration of alternative costing models the LCW Committee approved a revised proposal on 2016-01-19. With lower equipment costs and a significant initial contribution from our service provider, Zonewatch, we are now able to bring a LPR solution to the Loevenstein community at 54% of the original project cost.
Current project status: Our iWatch LPR Camera project went live on 19 Aug 2016 with three camera poles covering the entire Loevenstein West of Jip de Jager. This excellent progress with the initial installation took our iWatch project midway into Phase 2. The Loevenstein community is now called upon to step up the contributions in order that we can also cover the area East of Jip de Jager. (Updated 17 March 2017)
Fundraising can be much more fun than collecting resident contributions and LCW aims to mobilise the Loevenstein residents through the hosting of special events. These events will raise funds in support of our Loevenstein Street Camera Project (LSCP).
