DEVON and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez has pledged an extra £200,000 funding to increase CCTV capacity across the force area and encourage the development of monitoring ‘hubs’.

The initiative is highlighted in her newly published Police and Crime plan.

Ms Hernandez said: ‘High quality and interconnected CCTV plays a major role in helping to keep people safe. It is an invaluable resource for the police to investigate crime and enable emergency services to find and help vulnerable people.

‘I want to support local authorities to better monitor their existing systems. It’s very much about building them into a hub, where you’ve got excellent staff monitoring CCTV on behalf of local authorities.

‘This helps reduce the cost to them, it helps provide reassurance to the public and it also protects police officers on the street and ensures we have some good evidence when we need it.’

Local authorities can face challenges in establishing and maintaining local CCTV systems – in particular the capital purchase of equipment and the complexities and costs associated with monitoring systems.

A centralised CCTV monitoring hub and service is provided by Cornwall Fire and Rescue in Tolvaddon. With nine Cornish towns currently connected in, and the capacity to extend it significantly, this initiative has already gone a long way towards rationalising CCTV provision in Cornwall.

Cllr Geoff Brown, Cornwall Council’s Cabinet member for communities, said: ‘I think this is a fantastic opportunity to team up with the Police and Crime Commissioner who is totally committed to the systems and is prepared to put money towards the capital investment of it.

‘Not only does it benefit the fire service because we can monitor situations when there are fires, but we can collate the data for the police. This saves the police officers time when they can be better employed out on the streets.’

The development of the Tolvaddon hub by Cornwall Council presents opportunities for other local authorities.

The PCC will work with them to develop this model and to deliver similar interconnected systems in Devon. Her Investment Strategy is focused on supporting capital investment, not running costs.