Newark and Sherwood District Council cabinet approve plans for £700,000 in-house CCTV control room

Plans for a new £700,000 CCTV control room with state-of-the-art technology have been approved — in a bid to be more proactive in crime prevention.

Newark and Sherwood District Council’s cabinet agreed the plans to create an in-house, 24/7 control room yesterday (February 18), and believe it will allowing for better crime prevention and improve residents’ safety.

Currently the council’s public realm cameras are controlled in partnership with other councils at Nottinghamshire Police’s headquarters — Sherwood Lodge, in Arnold — and require updating.

The new control room scheme was previously due to be partially funded through the Long-Term Towns Fund but — due to the Government’s decision to delay this funding release and the limited time left on the current control room lease at Sherwood Lodge, which runs until March 2026 — the council heard it would need to fund the project itself to avoid having a period without any CCTV coverage.

This is set to come at a cost of £740,000 from the council’s Change Management Reserve, to fund the creation of the new facility and integrate internal CCTV systems — already run by the council and covering key assets such as the Palace Theatre, leisure centres, and council offices — into this.

Currently these cameras are not monitored, and if incidents occur they must be viewed retrospectively.

Portfolio holder for public protection and community safety, Paul Taylor, said that while the council had made some big steps forward in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, it could not be complacent.

“This will deliver that step change in tackling anti-social behaviour and crime,” he added.

“It will mean we have a state-of-the-art system, the best in the county. Control room staff will know the area, and monitor cameras live.

“With AI it will spot behaviour which may lead to offending and flag it to staff.”

He also suggested Nottinghamshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner would be “likely” to make a contribution towards the scheme.

Opposition leader Jack Kellas questioned why the council was not continuing to work with the other Nottinghamshire councils in the CCTV partnership in order to save costs on new equipment.

He said: “We’ve been told the current system is not fit for use past March 2026, and we’re going alone to get a new system.

“If everyone’s got to do it, why not do it together and share set up costs… we could make it bigger, better, on a larger scale for a smaller cost.”

Mr Taylor explained the “primary reason” for moving the system in-house was so it could be monitored in real-time which he suggested when shared across three districts was “almost impossible”.

Lee Brazier added that on a past site visit to the Sherwood Lodge control room operators were balancing both the CCTV monitoring, requests from police, out-of-hours calls from councils, and people pressing help buttons at car parks asking for advice.

“It’s somewhat dangerous in effect, because if police do need that CCTV assistance perhaps it can’t happen,” he said.

“For me it’s great we are bringing this back in-house.”

Jack Kellas abstained from the vote, and all other present members voted in favour of approval.

In a statement after the meeting, Mr Taylor described the plans as a “huge win for the safety of our residents” and added: “The current way of working is far too reactive and requires staff to attend multiple sites to review footage following an incident. I am pleased to be bringing all our local CCTV systems into our district in the form of a new control room, allowing us to monitor our district 24/7 in real time and prevent rather than just react to anyone flouting the law.

“This is a huge and exciting project. Being proactive against crime will result in an increased number of prosecutions and make our streets safer for everyone.”

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