A Cornwall council has agreed to find additional funding in order to maintain CCTV monitoring services of the town centre.
Just four days ago Penzance town council agreed they could not afford the continued monitoring of CCTV, but they have now pledged to find the money amid fears that the public would stay away from the ailing high street without the added security of CCTV.
The cuts stem from an overall cut in Cornwall County Council funding who reduced the amount of funding available to pay for CCTV monitoring staff earlier this year. They left it to individual town councils to decide if they would like to make up the shortfall.
The cuts of GB pound 10,000 agreed by the town council last week would have seen a reduction in the hours of control room staff from 33 hours a week to 24 hours a week.
The cameras would have remained on but they would be static rather than panning, and operators would not be alerting police to incidents at peak times, according to the BBC.
Penzance Chamber of Commerce chairman, Dick Cliffe said at the time: “Businesses in the town centre are already under particular stress at the moment. You are talking about GB pound 10,000 to make this town centre a place where people feel comfortable during the day and in the evening.”
However, at a meeting last night, <a href=”http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/CCTV-funding-continue/story-16548659-detail/story.html”>according to reports</a>, the council voted ‘unanimously’ to commit funding to keep CCTV monitoring at the present levels.
Members of the local business community, the county council and Devon and Cornwall Police will now be consulted on the source of the funding, and the long-term future of CCTV in the town.
Could council cuts mean a drastic reduction in the use of CCTV across the UK? We’d love to know your thoughts by commenting below.
Free Download: The Video Surveillance Report 2023
Discover the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving video surveillance sector by downloading the 2023 Video Surveillance Report. Over 500 responses to our survey, which come from integrators to consultants and heads of security, inform our analysis of the latest trends including AI, the state of the video surveillance market, uptake of the cloud, and the wider economic and geopolitical events impacting the sector!
Download for FREE to discover top industry insight around the latest innovations in video surveillance systems.
