Newark and Sherwood District Councillors clash on CCTV control room pproject following government unitary authority plans

Following the announcement that local government would be restructured in the coming years, a council has been challenged on a decision to relocate a CCTV camera control room to Newark.

Last year, Newark and Sherwood District Council agreed to give notice to the Nottinghamshire CCTV partnership that they would be leaving and approved plans to establish their own CCTV control room to its headquarters at Castle House, at the cost of £700,000.

At the time it was argued that this was a beneficial decision as it would allow the council to have more control over the operation of CCTV cameras, and more proactively respond to incidents of crime and anti-social behaviour.

However, in recent months the UK government announced plans that local district, borough, city and county councils would be combined into unitary authorities — potentially affected the project.

Ahead of a meeting of full council this week Independent councillor, Johno Lee, asked: “Given that we are moving towards a unitary system where services will likely be amalgamated rather than separated, is now really the right time to be relocating the camera system hub?”

He also questioned “whether this is a financially wise decision in the context of future service integration?"

In response, the portfolio holder for public protection and community relations, Paul Taylor, said: “Bringing the CCTV control room back to Newark will deliver a step change in protecting the safety of the people of Newark and Sherwood.

“I certainly am not willing to put their safety at risk so that you can play petty politics.”

He added that the council was “already a year into [the] two year notice period” and said the decision has been taken to ensure the district was “proactively monitored” in an “effective and efficient” way.

Mr Taylor argued that it was difficult to plan ahead for the unitary authority as devolution was unlikely to happen until at least 2028, and that “it would then take at least four years until the new unitary authority got round to reviewing CCTV”.

He also took the opportunity to highlight the results of work to reduce anti-social behaviour, with the number down 15.4% year on year across the whole district.

More specifically, within the wards making up Newark town centre there had also been significant reductions, including by 37% in the Castle Ward, 37% in the Beacon Ward, and by 29% in the Devon Ward. In Johno Lee’s ward of Balderton, there has been a 58% reduction.

Johno Lee accused Mr Taylor of not fully answering his question, resulting in a brief disagreement between councillors.