New $300,000 CCTV technology should be installed into Invercargill City centre within 11 months.

A project manager has been appointed and a review of all existing council technology completed, with the next steps to find out exactly where to locate it, the Infrastructure and Services Committee heard yesterday.

Only one of the Invercargill City Council’s existing nine cameras in the city was working and the footage was poor, with police having a less than 5% success rate in its investigations.

Earlier this year city councillors agreed to form a group of elected members, council staff, police and other community stakeholders to look at an upgrade.

Group manager of customer and environment Trudie Hurst told the meeting yesterday, that the City Streets Closed Circuits project was on track, and the next stage was to find exactly where they can invest in it.

In her report to council, she outlined that an Investment Logic Map (ILM) workshop was held on July 21, to identify key problems, and the primary issue to be addressed was that people felt unsafe in the city.

The three underlying causes were anti-social behaviour, changes to the physical environment (both in the city and surrounds), and that resources that were not being effectively maximised to address the issue.

Deputy Mayor Nobby Clark said he’d also spoken to police and they wanted licence plate identification so they could pick up and track criminals across the city, and arterial routes.

But Trudie said that would be covered in a separate project using different funding.   There was also the wider community suburbs to consider, such as Bluff, Windsor and Waikiwi.

She also stated that for some people in the community CCTV was not welcomed.

The CCTV upgrade will work to help not only police but the Invercargill Community Patrol, Maori Wardens and the community.

Trudie said in her report that there was the potential to utilise the existing network, at the same time to give wider coverage and more support.

Because council doesn’t have the capabilities in house to deliver the project itself, it has proactively approached the market to find the necessary support.

Following the review of council CCTV technology, the project manager will identify options for linking the architecture across all locations, and management of the assets going forward.

A further update reporting to the new council or relevant committee, will be provided in December.

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