Selective about the facts of CCTV

11:16am Monday 5th May 2008

SIR - I am grateful for Councillor Francis Lankester's attention to our project to install CCTV in Ronkswood.

Unfortunately, Coun Lankester has been selective about which facts he remembers and the true impact the budget has had on the scheme.

The obstacle to moving forward has been the failure of the council to honour the arrangement governing CCTV city-wide, whereby the staff costs of monitoring are met by the city council which owns the system, while the police house the equipment and cover the sundry costs of power, heating, lighting, staff training, providing uniforms and so on.

The present shortfall in funding staff costs to monitor CCTV city-wide amounts to over £30,000 which the council is unwilling to pay.

In October, 2007, the leader of the council gave his written support to a grant of £10,000 towards the capital cost of the purchase and installation of the equipment but there was no movement on the revenue cost of running the system. As a result, the project came to a halt.

Cabinet is only now formally deciding on an allocation of £10,000 to support this scheme. However, this is the same money already agreed by the leader of the council before our working party met on October 25 and, as there is no contribution towards the running costs, it hardly represents genuine good faith towards the scheme.

COUNCILLOR SIMON CRONIN, Worcester.

Editor's choice