Denbighshire council told to cut CCTV budget by a third

The north Wales councils do not want to pursue a single control room

Denbighshire council needs to cut its CCTV budget by a third while making it more efficient, councillors were told.

A report discussed on Thursday said the county's CCTV/out of hours calls team must cut spending from £341,000 to £228,000 per year by 2014/15.

Proposals - which have not been made public - were being discussed by councillors on Thursday.

Plans to establish one CCTV control room for north Wales were recently abandoned after a feasibility study.

A review of CCTV in north Wales, led by Conwy council, was commissioned in 2009 and was funded by a Welsh government loan of £805,000.

The study explored establishing one regional monitoring operation for CCTV across north Wales, to replace the existing six stand-alone operations.

A report being considered by Denbighshire's Performance Scrutiny Committee said: "Members will be aware that a long-running feasibility project for a single CCTV control room for north Wales was only recently concluded.

"The findings being that it was not a project the region wanted to pursue."

The council is considering how to make its CCTV and out of hours call team more efficient, which "must be done against the backdrop of the council's medium-term financial plan".

Some £50,000 has already been saved, said the council, leaving £63,000 to be cut from the budget within 18 months.

The report said that "a number of the proposed options will require extensive consultation prior to implementation".