Don’t put a foot wrong this Christmas warns Councillor

A leading Councillor has warned would-be criminals not to put a foot wrong this Christmas, following the completion of work to update the Council’s ageing CCTV network.

Over recent months, new CCTV cameras have been brought online and a fully refurbished Control Room has been unveiled, allowing the Council to quickly respond to incidents.

The improvements also mean that contact between the Control Room and Humberside Police is now much quicker.

Councillor Ron Shepherd, portfolio holder for safer and stronger communities at North East Lincolnshire Council, said that residents can feel safer this Christmas as a result of the work.

“This piece of work has been about making residents feel safer on our streets and in their communities, and I believe that it will achieve that outcome.

“The old network was in desperate need of upgrades, and we have invested in it to the point where we have upgraded 97 existing CCTV cameras and introduced an additional 61 new cameras across the borough so that they offer better quality images and can be monitored easily.

“We’ve also brought in more mobile cameras that we can move to different locations at a moments notice.

“The main function of the control room and CCTV network has been to support Humberside Police and other emergency services, and each year we supply these services with hundreds of pieces of footage.

“Following the new upgrades, I expect that this work will continue to a greater degree.

“We have no place for crime and anti-social behaviour in our borough, and I’m hoping that these latest CCTV upgrades will act as a deterrent to any would-be criminals this Christmas.”

CCTV footage remains one of the most useful forms of evidence used in the investigation of crime, particularly fly-tipping cases taken by the council through the court system.

Footage has been used in many of the Council’s cases that have been resolved through fixed penalty notices and those issued through the court.

Since April 2022, the council have taken six fly tipping prosecutions through Magistrates court and issued around 40 fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping.