Work to commence on upgrading Shrewsbury CCTV cameras thanks to PCC funding

Work to replace the majority of CCTV cameras across Shrewsbury will commence next week (Monday 15 August 2016).

The upgrade follows a review of CCTV in Shrewsbury by Shropshire Council, where it was agreed to both upgrade most of the CCTV cameras and refurbish the CCTV Monitoring Centre.

The £190,000 project has been funded by the West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner, and has involved Shropshire’s Community Safety Partnership and Shrewsbury Town Council. The work will be undertaken by Region Services Limited, to upgrade the CCTV system and Monitoring Centre in Shrewsbury.

Work involves replacing the majority of the cameras in the town centre which are old and cannot be repaired, with new high definition cameras. There won’t be a reduction in the number of cameras currently in the town centre, and the new system being installed will give more capacity if new cameras are required in the future.

The CCTV Monitoring Centre has also been refurbished with new screens and consoles for the operators to ensure that staff can continue to monitor the cameras proactively and that incidents are dealt with quickly by identifying, responding to and recording crime and anti-social behaviour.

Karen Calder, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for health and well-being, and Chair of Shropshire’s Health and Well-being Board, said:

“Ensuring that CCTV is maintained is a challenge for all councils, but by working closely with our partners, we can now install a modern CCTV system in Shrewsbury.

“I am extremely pleased and thankful that the Police and Crime Commissioner has invested funding in the safety of residents, visitors and businesses in Shrewsbury through an upgrade of the town centre CCTV system, which will vastly improve its capabilities and effectiveness.”

John Campion, West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner, added;

“This is an excellent example of partners working together to create safer communities. The new CCTV system for Shrewsbury will provide a better deterrent when it comes to crime prevention, and be more helpful in providing useful evidence should an offence take place. It is absolutely right that money goes back into our local communities like this, in a way that benefits everyone.”

The current CCTV system was installed in the early 2000s, and since that time technology has improved considerably, with more up-to-date systems providing far greater image quality, recording capacity and fine detail, in order to further increase the effectiveness of the system in detecting and preventing crime and anti-social behaviour and providing public reassurance.

Further information

Shropshire’s Community Safety Partnership is made up of several key organisations who work together to protect and safeguard Shropshire’s local communities and improve community safety and well-being: Members include:

• Shropshire Council
• Shropshire Fire & Rescue Service
• West Mercia Police
• National Probation Service
• West Mercia and Warwickshire Community Rehabilitation Company
• Youth Offending Service
• Voluntary and Community Sector
• Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group