No progress on upgrading CCTV system for Melksham

TOWN councillors have debated the CCTV provision in Melksham once again at a recent full town council meeting, where a discussion was had about upgrading the system to monitor crime and ensure the general safety of the community.

However, the council did not proceed to vote on the motion, which would see Melksham joining the Warminster CCTV partnership. At the meeting, held on Monday 28th November, councillor Colin Goodhind put forward a proposal that Melksham joins the Warminster CCTV partnership to further the provision of effective and proportionate CCTV coverage for the Melksham area.

This partnership includes Westbury, Warminster and the West Wilts Trading Estate. All three locations’ CCTV cameras are being monitored in one central control room, at the same time.

Sharing the proposal, cllr Goodhind said, “Our system at the moment has fallen behind and become, not completely ineffective, but not what we need for a CCTV system.

“There is a possibility, subject to our application being accepted, that we could join this partnership. The need and appetite for this has been has been expressed by the wider community and the police over the past few years and it would be irresponsible for us to delay it any longer.

“We could be joining a partnership that is up and running, with a state-of-the-art control room and we would then have to upgrade the cameras we’ve got and add to them in a way that is proportional for what we need to achieve in Melksham. We have the opportunity to use same approach as Warminster, that has worked out very well for them.”

In response to this proposal, cllr Jon Hubbard said, “Here we go again. I have forgotten how many plans we have been through and we have not implemented any of them yet and now we have got another version. Present at the meeting was Mark Chalmers (CCTV control room manager) and Stuart Legg (estates manager) from Warminster Town Council, who answered questions from councillors about the scheme.

Mark Chalmers said, “You could put a control room any place in the world to monitor the CCTV. It comes with a mapping system. If an incident comes in, in Melksham say someone is shop lifting, we would put the address [of the location they are shop lifting from] in on a map, it will bring up the nearest cameras and we can track that. I have come from a background in a police control room, we were based in Bristol and covered the whole of the Somerset area. The system worked really well.”

£2,500 per camera a year cost

Responding to questions about the costs of this project Stuart Legg said, “The partner pays a percentage for running costs of the control room, based on number of cameras they have. The recommendation is that you get an independent consultant to come out and do a review of your system at the moment. They can then look at how many cameras you are going to start with.”

He explained there would be an initial cost to purchase the cameras, a joining fee and an annual cost of around £2,500 per camera each year. In response to cllr Colin Goohind’s proposal, councillors debated the topic at length but felt this was something they did not want to support at this moment in time.

‘A lot to spend’

Melksham’s mayor cllr Simon Crundell said, “We have debated [CCTV] in the last council year and I remember one point being raised about the amount of money we are going to spend versus the scale of the problem. There are maybe 30-40 real problem individuals that are causing problems for the town. I am cautious that this is a lot to spend on 30-40 problem people.

“We passed a resolution to buy two cameras in the last six – eight months and we haven’t done that. Now, we have a more elaborate scheme. For councillors in support of this proposal, firstly if you had a [significant amount of money] to spend on anti-social behaviour, would you spend that on CCTV, or could it come from other community engagement projects?

“Secondly, the pursuit of an ever-efficient CCTV system will never be over. If we keep deferring items because a new and better system comes along, we will never have a better system. I think we need to consider what problems are we trying to solve and how best to solve them.”

Cllr Tom Price added, “I am concerned this close to budget setting about making any firm commitment to invest in quite a large amount of money into the CCTV system. I would urge council not to push this too quickly right now, as we’re going to have a very challenging year next year. The deployable cameras are budgeted for, so it is not like we don’t have any cameras”

Instead of proceeding with this proposal, councillors voted on another proposal to delegate authority to the town council’s clerk to engage an independent consultant to assess the needs of CCTV provision in the town at a cost not exceeding £2,000.

However, this motion was not carried.

Following the town council’s meeting cllr Colin Goodhind said, “Further plans will be put forward for this. CCTV will not come off the agenda.”