FOI request (FOI201408)

CCTV

Requested Mon 23 January 2017
Responded  Mon 23 January 2017

Can you tell me how many CCTV cameras the council is responsible for maintaining in a) 2016, b) 2013, c) 2011 and d) 2006?

Can you tell me how much the council spent on i) new CCTV cameras and ii) the maintenance of existing cameras in a) 2016, b) 2013, c) 2011 and d) 2006?

Can you tell me i) how many arrests cameras contributed to and ii) how many criminal incidents recorded by council-maintained cameras in a) 2016, b) 2013, c) 2011 and d) 2006?

Can you tell me what the budget for i) new CCTV cameras and ii) maintenance of existing CCTV cameras are in a) 2017/18 and b) 2018/19?

Does the council have any plans to reduce the number of CCTVs it is currently responsible for in the future and if so by how many?

Response

In 2016 the Hastings Borough Council (HBC) were responsible for maintaining 121 CCTV cameras but only 94 of these are public facing.

In 2013 the HBC were responsible for 62 cameras in public spaces plus an additional 29 which were on a Police Platform for monitoring, making a total of 99 public facing cameras. Essentially the two systems were merged in 2015 / 2016 hence the 2016 figures for camera numbers.

In 2011 the total number of CCTV cameras maintained by HBC was 86 (57 on the Council network and 29 on the Police network).

We do not hold figures for 2006 but estimate the figure for HBC cameras on the network being 51 as I believe we added some cameras to car parks around this time.

In 2006 / 7 £30,426 was spent on maintenance and £4,365.75 on new cameras, in 2011/2 £61.948 on maintenance and nil on new cameras, 2013/14 £61,490.56 on maintenance nil on new cameras, in 2016/17 £34,433.14 on maintenance, £114,931 on new cameras.

We cannot give any sort of accurate figures for arrests or criminal incidents due to the nature of the set up with Sussex Police as they have a shared use of the system with priority use over the majority of the cameras.  However I can advise that over the whole Sussex police partnership network that the Police have recorded 34,000 incidents have been captured by CCTV which has contributed to more than 1,700 arrests in the last year. Hastings is one of the larger partners in this partnership with just under a quarter of the cameras being in Hasting and St. Leonards.

There is no budget for new cameras over the next two financial years with the maintenance budget set to be in the region of £55000 per year.

Currently we do not have any plans to reduce the numbers of CCTV cameras in the Borough.