A MAJOR review of the CCTV system which monitors activity in Newtownards and Bangor town centres is expected to be completed next month. Several councillors have long called for a complete overhaul of the CCTV system in the borough with one local politician claiming it requires luck for it to be of any use to the PSNI. At a meeting of Ards and North Down Council’s Environment Committee on Wednesday there were also calls to have the CCTV scheme extended to cover Comber. At the meeting the head of regulatory services, Richard McCracken, explained a tender process was taking place to review the CCTV system. “The expectation is that it should be delivered before the end of this financial year,” he added. Alderman Trevor Cummings noted two incidents caught on camera in August last year both of which happened in Bangor High Street. One was three males fighting and the other was two females fighting. “When such fights are identified by the CCTV operator is it reported by whoever is on duty”, he asked. “I’m just mindful of the ongoing campaign ‘One punch kills’ and the tragic circumstances that can arise from these instances.”Mr McCracken explained if the operator became aware of it they would report it to the PSNI. “The actual provision of the CCTV recording is only provided if the PSNI request it,” he added. The effective use of CCTV demands good communication between operators and the police, Mr Cummings underlined. “For that reason I very much look forward to the findings of the review,” he said. “Modern policing must adopt every available resource, and that includes the use of technology.“I very much expect the PSNI to be at the table when determining the way forward.”Councillor Pete Wray said he had visited the CCTV hub just before Christmas. He said when incidents happened, the protocol was for the operator to phone 101 or 999 depending on the severity of the situation. “One of the solutions, and I think PSNI are working on it, is to get a direct line in which is absolutely sensible,” he continued. The Ards peninsula councillor said the whole system needs to be completely overhauled.“In a situation where there is an assault a few pieces of luck need to happen for those cameras to be at all useful,” he said. “The first piece of luck is the operator has to be on shift, the second piece of luck is that he needs to actually physically see it on the screens – there are plenty of trees blocking cameras – and then he needs to be able to zoom in on time to identify somebody.”If all those pieces of luck didn’t happen, Mr Wray continued, then the CCTV cameras were ‘absolutely useless’ in their current format.The council’s CCTV cameras were ‘simply not very good’ councillor Patricia Morgan claimed. “I would also like to point out that Comber doesn’t have any CCTV and they would like some,” she said
