As part of the Community Plan for safer communities, earlier this year the Moray Council committed itself to the next phase of the Public Space CCTV system.
 
This pounds 270,000 investment in public safety has been completed, and Moray now has a state of the art digital recording system within a modernised monitoring room.
 
Old analogue cameras have been replaced with digital equipment, which will allow high-resolution images to be taken from footage.
 
Portable units have also been commissioned, which will give police the flexibility to operate the cameras from a laptop and mobile phone.
 
The system is also being expanded to provide cameras in Lossiemouth and Keith, both installations now well advanced with Lossiemouth due to come on line in July.
 
In Keith, once some final points are agreed with Historic Scotland with regards the use of The Institute building, installation work should commence in September 2007.
 
The new system will operate from the Grampian Police control room in Elgin, which is staffed 24 hours a day.
 
The system as installed will allow for new technologies to be integrated as they become available. Whilst not completely ‘future-proof’, it will be possible to enhance the systems capabilities still further as developments occur within the industry.
 
With the introduction of this new suite of CCTV equipment, Moray Council and Grampian Police will review the locations of all existing cameras to ensure they are still in the right positions for optimum use, and ascertain whether any additional ones are required.
 
This review will be started once current planned works have been completed.
 
The three new portable cameras introduced to the system have already been used to test out their practise and operation. These will give the capability to quickly target areas not covered by fixed systems.
 
These mobile units can respond to calls from the public who may have concerns over such issues as anti social behaviour, vandalism and street crime.
 
Moray Council’s community wardens or our ASB Officer, Andy Jamieson, will be the public’s first point of contact for such calls.
 
The new Chair of the CCTV Working Party, Cllr Douglas Ross, said: “At our first meeting since the elections the group were updated by all parties involved in the Moray CCTV system, and on the whole the message was good. 

“We have state of the art equipment, a newly refurbished monitoring room and additional cameras about to be put in place in Lossiemouth and Keith.  However I raised concerns which I had read in the Northern Scot about the number of people manning these cameras and have been reassured that there were personnel problems which will hopefully be overcome and there should always be at least one person viewing the cameras but at times there could be three people in the monitoring station. 

“I hope this will provide some reassurance to members of the public who were concerned that events may be missed, however all images are recorded meaning the police have the opportunity to view an incident and use the images as evidence even if it had not been viewed by an operator at the time.”