£76,000 upgrade for Fylde's CCTV cameras

At a recent meeting of the Environment, Health and Housing Committee, members agreed to approve the replacement of the strategic town centre cameras in St Annes, Lytham and Kirkham in principle, subject to Capital budgetary provision being confirmed through the 2022/23 budget process.

It is envisaged that four rapid redeployable cameras – designed to deliver live and recorded high‐definition images via 4G mobile transmission– will also replace the two mobile CCTV vans currently used.

Coun Tommy Threlfall, chairman of the committee which met to discuss the plans, said: “Community safety is greatly important to us. Having effective CCTV across the borough’s town centres and hot spots is imperative to keeping our residents and visitors safe.”

The Council currently controls 15 static CCTV cameras in town centre locations. There are eight cameras in St Annes, four in Lytham and three in Kirkham.

The cameras are maintained under an agreement with Blackpool Council and operated and monitored through an arrangement with Wyre Council.

Recent figures from Lancashire Constabulary and the partnerships officer at Wyre Council, who oversees the Fylde CCTV operations, showed 2,133 incidents were recorded in St Annes town centre alone between autumn 2019 and winter 2020.

These were classified by the police as including 198 nuisance incidents, 47 suspicious circumstances, 177 concern for safety incidents and 143 incidents of theft.

Lytham data showed 547 incidents were recorded, with Kirkham recording 677, all including nuisance, suspicious circumstances and theft.

Coun Threlfall added: “It is clear from the number of incidents recorded throughout 2019 – 2020 that CCTV is a necessity in not only tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, but in helping the police to bring those responsible to justice.

“We are fully committed at the council to always striving to improve services which benefit the borough and help to keep it safe. The new CCTV provision looks to do just this.”

The Budget Working Group has recommended that funding for replacing the present town centre cameras be included in the budget for 2022/23.

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