Council debates future of Leedswatch system

Story link: Council debates future of Leedswatch system by Jan Harris

The CCTV system in Leeds, a service known as Leedswatch, was recently the subject of the ‘CCTV Cities’ programme on Channel 5.

The Leedswatch service provides one of the largest CCTV camera networks in Europe.

The programme showed several incidents where the city’s huge network of 350 cameras, covering 240 square miles, helped to make the city a safer place.

In one incident, operators alerted police to a man preparing to jump off one of Leeds’ highest bridges.

The police responded quickly and were able to drag the man back to safety.

However, according to a new report, improvements to the system are needed, including a new control room, at a potential cost of around £970,000.

The council is considering a number of options to provide the necessary improvements, while also saving costs.

These include a possible merger with the Metro transport CCTV system, which could help costs for both organisations as they would be able to share infrastructure and equipment, and streamline staff.

The provision of new technology is also being considered, with the existing VCR recording and storage technology being replaced with a digital storage and retrieval system.

This would allow labour intensive tasks to be automated, and provide significant operational improvements while also being able to meet future needs.

While either option could provide the city with an improved CCTV system, the downside is likely to be the loss of a significant number of jobs.

The final decision lies with the council’s executive board, which is due to meet imminently.