|
City's CCTV set to be improved from SHAUN LOWTHORPE |
|
31 March 2005 10:16 Norwich's city
centre CCTV system
is set for a £500,000 cash injection. Council leader Ian Couzens told the EDP
that his Lib Dem administration was preparing a funding package for a new system
and hoped to include it as part of the capital programme in May.
It comes less
than a week after Insp Gavin Tempest, who is responsible for policing the city
centre, criticised the current system. But Mr Couzens said last night the council
had been looking at the move for some time and it was not a response to either
Insp Tempest's comments or a letter from Home Secretary and Norwich South MP Charles
Clarke. "We don't produce £500,000 out of thin air," he said. "We have had preliminary
talks with the police and we will be talking to them to ensure that we get the
system which works best." He said the council had been aware "for a while" that
the CCTV system
was coming to the end of its life, and the aim was to replace it with the latest
technology. The current system consists of 66 city centre cameras, 13 Norfolk
County Council Urban Traffic Control cameras and 12 cameras in car parks The system
is monitored 24 hours a day every day from a control room Insp Tempest last week
called into question the effectiveness of the city's £250,000 CCTV network. But
a statement issued yesterday by Norfolk Police and Norwich City Council said his
comments had been taken out of context. Chief Supt Tony Cherington said: "We fully
support the use of CCTV, which repeatedly proves its effectiveness in the fight
against crime and the fear of crime. "One of the main benefits of CCTV systems
for the police is that it acts as an aid for managing resources and responding
to incidents, ensuring officers are deployed to where they are most needed. "The
presence of CCTV can also have a strong deterrent on the numbers of offences committed
in a specific area." The statement adds: "Technology has moved on and the current
system is no longer 'state of the art' so we need to look at what investment is
needed to bring the CCTV system up to this level, but this does not mean what
we have in place is 'useless'." In a separate move last night, Charles Clarke
wrote a letter to Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, who is visiting the city today,
urging him to press his colleagues in City Hall to dip their hands in their pockets
and fund a modern scheme. "Norwich's CCTV system is below the standard of CCTV
in most comparable towns and cities," he said. "Will you commit the Liberal Democrats
to give the city of Norwich a modern and effective CCTV system to deter crime
as Labour has committed to do?" From EDP24 |
