Based in an undisclosed location in the north of Shrewsbury is a team of 18 workers who play an instrumental role in the day to day running of the town – and many people don’t even know they exist.
The CCTV Centre operations hub run by Shropshire Council was set up in 2001 after a £400,000 grant from the Home Office and originally oversaw 20 cameras at different locations in the town.
Now, almost a decade on, the team has a network of 31 town centre cameras, 100 car park cameras and also monitors 52 locations for Telford & Wrekin Council in a bid to cut costs for both local authorities.
Paul Clark in the centre
Their assets are thought to be worth over £1million – so it’s no wonder they operate out of a secret base.
Councillor Alan Mosley arranged a special tour for myself and a handful of residents from Ditherington – where one of the latest cameras has just gone ‘live’.
It was a chance to see how the system worked and hear about the newest developments.
Both Whitchurch and Ludlow are looking to move their camera network to the Shrewsbury HQ as the empire continues to expand.
No longer do they solely rely on static wired cameras as most of them are now Wi-Fi radio signalled with 360 degree capability and an incredibly reliable zoom feature.
The most high-tech are the Rolls Royce fibre optic cameras which each cost a six-figure sum to install.
David Roberts, environmental enforcement manager, said: “The technology has moved on a fantastic amount since 2001 and the aim for the future is to have a complete overview of Shropshire and to keep working with all our community partnerships which is where we get our intelligence from.”
These partnerships with the council, police, parking officers, CSOs, the Environment Agency and groups such as ShopWatch and PubWatch, help filter intelligence back to the control centre.
From there, they can track a criminal or incident with near-crystal clear vision and real-time images can be sent directly through to the police control room which operates on the same network.
Darren Herbert, who joined in March after spending five years in retail security, said: “It makes the shop keepers feel a lot safer and it’s a really rewarding job because here you are constantly helping people and it’s a lot more professional – whereas in retail you were there solely to catch people.”
The cameras have a number of different modes such as tour and park mode and workers have to abide by strict privacy policy such as filming themselves and giving reasons if they are to track a particular person.
Monitoring centre supervisor, Paul Clark, said: “We’re not spies, we’re all fully licensed and have many guidelines and privacy rules to abide by. You really do see the good and the bad and you have to be prepared to deal with anything in this job.”
Footage was shown to myself and a few local residents of the exact moment the gas explosion occurred in Shrewsbury as well as a number of drug offences and drunken fights caught on camera.
They explained how they were able to play a key role in incidents such as these through their high-tech equipment which can now even send live CCTV images straight to a mobile phone via Wi-Fi.
The latest camera to be added to the network is the one on Ditherington Road, outside Tesco Express, which was installed because of anti-social behaviour around the shops.
It has just gone live and operates 360 degrees on a live link to the control centre.
Councillor Alan Mosley said it was excellent news for the area and that the work the CCTV team did behind the scenes was ‘very significant’ in crime reduction across Shrewsbury.
They may not get the same praise as the bobby on the beat – but their job is just as vital.
By David Seadon