Skipton's closed circuit TVs are "no deterrent" (From Craven Herald)

Skipton's closed circuit TVs are "no deterrent"

1:02pm Wednesday 7th February 2007 in News By Newsdesk

SKIPTON'S closed circuit television network is not helping police bring criminals to justice, a council report has revealed.

Currently Skipton's town centre is monitored in seven places - the town's four main car parks, in Caroline Square, Newmarket Street and outside Holy Trinity Church on the High Street. The cameras rotate for 24 hours a day and images are picked up and monitored in Harrogate.

There is an additional viewing facility at Skipton Police Station consisting of a "slave" monitor and camera control equipment. But this is rarely viewed due to North Yorkshire Police's policy of not allowing constant CCTV monitoring from within police stations.

In a report to the council's community services meeting, head of economic and community development David Smurthwaite said: "The monitoring centre can contact the police control room and the police can ask the monitoring centre for assistance.

"The police claim that this does not happen at present.

"The result is that in the last year the monitoring centre has contacted the police on 12 occasions and, in total, images have been requested on 64 occasions.

"Evidence from CCTV has not been used in court by the prosecution in the last year but it has been requested by the defence to prove that CCTV does not provide evidence for or against the defendant.

"The view of the police is that CCTV no longer has the deterrent effect and much of the problems in Skipton town centre in the evening are drink related when individuals do not consider CCTV."

Community services councillors considered other options for delivering the CCTV service, which currently costs £53,000 a year.

They decided to monitor the system from a local centre rather than at Harrogate and add two extra cameras to the current network - at the bus station and on Sackville Street.