North Lanarkshire Council secures CCTV award

Story link: North Lanarkshire Council secures CCTV award by Jan Harris

North Lanarkshire Council, in partnership with Ntl:Telewest Business and Controlware Communications, has won a national award for its CCTV project.

At the CCTV industry’s IFSEC awards the Council won Best New Project / Installation for innovation.

North Lanarkshire has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and CCTV has been used by the Council over a number of years as part of its commitment to public safety.

The council replaced its outdated and overstretched system with new technology from Ntl:Telewest, who installed the first fully managed IP converged solution of its kind in the UK.

The installation is also one of the largest in Europe.

In order to provide extra capacity and to improve the efficiency and flexibility of its operations, the new system benefited from centralised CCTV monitoring. The Central Monitoring Unit replaced monitoring operations at four separate police stations.

The IP CCTV solution converts analogue camera feeds into digital signals and transmits them to the CCTV control room. Operators can monitor images from over 250 public space CCTV cameras in a central location.

The system allows footage from a precise date to be quickly accessed, images are easier to store and footage can now be stored for 31 days instead of 14, in line with new anti-terrorism guidelines.