North Wales CCTV Plans Due For Discussion

Councillors will meet to discuss plans to merge or maintain a standalone Closed Circuit TeleVision (CCTV) service for the town.

CCTV monitoring is currently run via six separate local authority areas in North Wales. Wrexham itself has 92 cameras, and is using older analogue equipment previously described as ‘effectively obsolete’.

Wrexham.com has previously been told that although such equipment appears dated now, it was cutting edge when first acquired! The cost to update to digital formats is estimated at around £150,000.

Due to the large amount of duplication of services across the several local authorities a plan has been suggested to merge into one or two super-cctv centres. Next week Councillors will be asked to support the idea of a two centre solution, with one base in Wrexham and the other in St Asaph.

Interestingly the third recommendation to the Executive Board is to commission the Head of Assets and Economic Development to develop an alternative plan just incase the two centre solution does not occur.

Speaking anonymously to Wrexham.com one insider said “We are confident that our CCTV provision will stay in the town, and the idea of moving it away will finally be scrapped.”

“The local knowledge and experience of operators cannot be understated and the stand alone system has down the town well”.

This report is one of the outputs from a review that started in 2011, which was led by Conwy Council and funded by a Welsh Government loan of £805,000.

The full report can be viewed here.

(Incidentally earlier today the CCTV camera on the ‘Tesco roundabout’ / ‘Dragon roundabout’ appeared to be keeping an eye on Morag The Dragon!)