OPINION - Will a CCTV-lined route keep me safe — or just help police identify my body?

It’s 10pm on a Friday and I’m deliberately avoiding the main road on my walk home from the Tube. Instead, I’m following the edge of Richmond Green, taking a slightly longer route down a cobbled pavement lined with CCTV cameras. It feels counterintuitive: I’ve spent years being told to avoid parks and green spaces after dark. But according to Safest Way — a new route-planning app designed around personal safety — this is technically the safer route back to my flat. Or as much as you can call any route safe, I guess.