‘No movement’ on town’s mobile CCTV project

THE project to install rapid deployment CCTV units (RDCs) in the town has still not progressed, say Melksham Town Council. 

In April this year, the town council purchased two moveable cameras at a cost of £13,000, along with rechargeable batteries to use when mains power is not available. 

The cameras were initially delivered to cllr Colin Goodhind who was setting them up and checking the equipment. In July, Melksham’s mayor, cllr Simon Crundell, requested the cameras be returned to the town council, which cllr Goodhind has complied with, although he says he had not completed work on the units. However, since he returned the equipment, cllr Goodhind says it has ‘sat in boxes’ in the town council’s CCTV room. 

Melksham News asked Melksham Town Council when the units would be installed, at a full town council meeting held on Monday 25th September, with locum clerk Heather Parks saying there was “nothing to report”.

Cllr Goodhind has spearheaded a campaign for several years to encourage the town council to improve the town’s CCTV system,  

He explains, “The equipment in question is the rapid deployment cameras (RDCs) which were demonstrated to councillors, the police, housing society and others on 13th January 2022. On 24th January that year, a motion was unanimously passed at the full town council meeting to purchase two of these RDC units, along with rechargeable batteries so they could be used when mains power isn’t available.” Cllr Goodhind says that the units were eventually purchased the following year, in April 2023.  

He said, “I took delivery of them at my home office address on 9th May so I could set them up on specialist software to check their performance, measure their operational time on batteries etc. I was very careful to email both our town council clerk and head of operations on 10th May, confirming I had received them and providing their serial numbers etc, so they could be added to the council’s asset register.  

“In early July, the mayor and deputy mayor decided these units should be returned to the Town Hall, irrespective of what I was doing with them. I explained that there was still work to do on them but on 17th July when I submitted a motion to upgrade some existing cameras that had already proved useful [at a cost of £3,245] our mayor recommended that no more was spent on CCTV until the RDC units were returned and even hinted at impropriety on my part; so I withdrew my motion and returned all the RDC equipment the following day, together with notes and contact details etc. They’ve sat in boxes under a desk in the CCTV room until this day.”  

At the July meeting of the full town council, it was agreed that a report should be prepared by the end of the year about ways of improving the town’s CCTV provision, with input from the police, which would be voted on at a subsequent town council meeting. However, it has now been confirmed by the council that no progress has been made. 

Cllr Goodhind says, “I have formally detached myself from all things town council CCTV-related as I have had enough, and feel I’ve spent enough years on the uphill struggle to get council to take CCTV seriously.”