Lead Member – Councillor Rob Macey, Portfolio Holder for Culture and Digital

Lead Officer – Nigel Newman

RESOLVED:

1. That In absence of any further partner funding commitment to support the most popular option from consultation (Option 4), and to help meet the Council’s savings target, to approve Option 1 with monitoring of CCTV moving to a “best endeavours” approach where staff’s priority will be responding to out of hours service calls, rather than CCTV monitoring. 

2. To agree to explore with partners the feasibility of a volunteer programme to provide additional monitoring capacity. This could provide additional active monitoring capacity during specific identified peaks and higher risk times.  

3. That the Council and other partners continue to seek other funding options to help support additional CCTV monitoring.  

The Portfolio Holder for Culture and Digital presented the report on the plans for the Shrewsbury Town Centre CCTV service following the public consultation and discussion with partners.  

This set out the outcome of a consultation with partners, local businesses and the public on the future of CCTV monitoring.  The reality was that while CCTV played an important role in deterring crime and promoting public safety, the current gold standard of 24/7 active monitoring was simply not sustainable in the face of current financial challenges.

The recommendation was to approve option one, 24/7 CCTV with passive monitoring - a best endeavours approach which would act as a deterrent but with a more flexible cost-effective monitoring model.  Option 4, had gained support from the public in the consultation, but would require partner funding.  This had been actively pursued again with partner agencies but they were also facing their own challenges and this option was not possible at the present time. 

It was understood that some residents may be concerned about the change, but the Portfolio Holder reiterated that CCTV would continue to play a vital role in public safety, working alongside other initiatives such as the West Mercia Police Town Centre Policing Unit and Rangers.  There would also be an opportunity to work with volunteers and partners to provide additional monitoring at peak times or during higher risk events.   Questions were asked about timescales and the possibility of unintended consequences stemming from the change and Cabinet members reported that extensive talks on CCTV provision had been held with partners going back to 2019 but it had not been possible to secure revenue funding from others since then.  The Leader thanked Shrewsbury Town Council for its commitment to contribute towards maintenance costs of the system.

RESOLVED:

1. That In absence of any further partner funding commitment to support the most popular option from consultation (Option 4), and to help meet the Council’s savings target, to approve Option 1 with monitoring of CCTV moving to a “best endeavours” approach where staff’s priority will be responding to out of hours service calls, rather than CCTV monitoring. 

2. To agree to explore with partners the feasibility of a volunteer programme to provide additional monitoring capacity. This could provide additional active monitoring capacity during specific identified peaks and higher risk times.  

3. That the Council and other partners continue to seek other funding options to help support additional CCTV monitoring.