Review Value Of CCTV Cameras
A REVIEW of North Somerset's CCTV camera system is to be carried out to assess its effectiveness and value for money.
A North Somerset Council scrutiny panel is to carry out the fact-finding mission after concerns were raised about the effectiveness of the 142 cameras operating across the district, 70 of which cover public spaces while the others are in car parks or public buildings.
The system costs the authority £330,000 per year to run. All the cameras are monitored from a control room at Weston-super-Mare Town Hall, which is staffed 24 hours a day.
The majority of the cameras are in the district's four main towns – Weston, Clevedon, Nailsea and Portishead. Weston has 41 cameras, Nailsea 12, Clevedon nine and Portishead six. There are two in Congresbury.
In Nailsea the cameras cost the town council £16,000 a year and in Portishead the bill is £7,500, a proportion of which goes to North Somerset towards the cost of monitoring and maintaining them.
Town councils receive a monthly report detailing the incidents monitored by control-room staff, including anything from dangerous driving and assaults to missing persons.
Concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of the cameras, whether evidence is being captured and whether it is good enough quality to be used by police to convict offenders.
This summer a vandal attack on flower baskets in Portishead – right under one of the town's cameras – was not captured due to a fault.
Scrutiny panel chairman councillor David Pasley said: "We have always thought that closed-circuit television is a good thing to have to help reduce crime and make people feel safe.
"There have been times when incidents have happened under the eye of cameras and we were told that the cameras did not pick them up.
"We will look at whether we need to improve the service and whether there are enough staff and enough monitoring of the cameras to make sure they are an effective use of taxpayers' money.
"We want to hear the public's views as it is taxpayers who are funding the operation of the cameras. We want to know whether people feel safer as a result of cameras, what improvements could be made or whether they feel cameras are a waste of money."
Avon and Somerset police spokeswoman Niamh Byrne said: "CCTV is a common line of police investigation and can have huge value evidentially when used in conjunction with other investigative methods. It can be used to trace the movements of suspects or victims and can be invaluable in identifying witnesses."
In the past year CCTV footage captured in North Somerset was used in investigations 726 times.
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