Spy cameras are worth every penny

2:52pm Thursday 16th November 2006

HEREFORDSHIRE'S network of CCTV cameras now costs nearly £200,000 a year to operate - but thousands of incidents are being captured on film.

And councillors are saying it is money well spent. Herefordshire Council's community services scrutiny committee was told that cameras covering Hereford, Leominster, Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye - and the privatised eyes operating them - had caught about 8,000 incidents on the cameras since the system switched to a separate county control room in June 2003.

Last year, five cameras covering Ledbury were connected to the control room and two more were added to the Hereford network - paid for by West Mercia Police - to bring the total to 35 countywide.

The committee heard that future plans included extending coverage along Hereford's Great Western Way and around the Riverside School site at Hunderton.

All told, the cameras cost £187,000 a year to run, paid for through contributions from Herefordshire Council, the police, Hereford City Council and the relevant parish councils.

The cameras are operated from a control room linked to to the likes of Hereford's retail security network and city beat officers. The centre also operates as a "control" for the Hereford city HAND (Herefordshire Against Night-time Disorder) scheme and various pub/club radio links.

Insp Peter Gebbie, of Hereford Police, told the committee that it was hard to quantify exactly how many convictions were down to the cameras.

Stills published in the Hereford Times had helped in successful prosecutions, but the primary purpose of the cameras was to gather evidence, said Insp Gebbie.

Operators, he said, sometimes had to make their own decisions about what to watch when incidents were competing for attention.

Council CCTV officer Debbie Stringer said she would like to see screens double-manned during the system's peak times and the eventual adoption of full 24-hour seven-days-a-week watching.

Councillor Harry Bramer said that on the figures provided the system was not vastly expensive to run - even if its conviction rate could not be quantified.

Councillor Chris Chappell, who chairs the committee, said contributions from interested parties and parish councils should be considered so cameras could cover the Rotherwas Industrial Estate.

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