External Photo-Scanners and PTZ cameras supplied by CCTV specialist Photo-Scan Systems have been installed in the Walsall district centres of Willenhall, Darlaston, Brownhills and Caldmore as part of a major upgrade to the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall’s dedicated surveillance network. This brings the total camera count for the Borough to over 90 bespoke CCTV cameras.
To accommodate the additional cameras and recording equipment, the Borough Council has completely refurbished the main Control Room. In addition, the previously independent CCTV operators have been transferred under standard TUPE regulations and additional operators recruited to ensure that there are at least two ‘surveyors’ in the Control Room on a round-the-clock basis.
“Although a large part of the surveillance is crime-related,” said the Borough’s emergency planning and CCTV manager Nicki Egginton, “we’re keen to use the CCTV by way of encouraging a positive attitude among the public at large. We try to use the cameras to spot fires early on and warn the Fire Brigade, and also as an aid to the police for tracking lost infants.”
Indeed Egginton feels that, since the new systems were installed, a closer working partnership has been developed with the police.
“By promoting an exchange of information between our operators and members of the local police force,” Egginton told Security Management Today, “both sets of personnel have gained a greater awareness of the tasks carried out in each operational Control Room. Greater co-operation has been the end result. There has also been a clear commitment from retailers to CCTV.”
The Photo-Scan cameras mainly cover town centre locations, then, but there’s an element of residential surveillance in the Willenhall and Goscote areas as well.
