A dismayed councillor has called on town hall bosses to get their act together and deliver the CCTV cameras that will improve safety for people living, working in or visiting Clacton town centre.
In December 2022 Tendring District Council (TDC) was awarded £317,695 from the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex’s Safer Streets Fund to help fund new town centre cameras and CCTV upgrades along with an improved Control Centre and increased monitoring.
Following the Independent, Labour administration taking over control of TDC in May 2023 they announced the system would be fully operational by early October 2023.
However, in November 2023 the administration was forced to reveal that they had missed their deadline. They said it was due to complexities that included planning permissions, highway consents and the like and that they had been required to secure an extension to the Safer Streets funding period until March 2025.
Now it has been revealed that many of the planning and highways consents that are needed have still not been obtained and power supply connections are not in place.
Clacton councillor Paul Honeywood has called on town hall bosses to get their act together and get things moving.
He said: “I have expressed my concerns about this issue on many occasions but there has been little sign of urgency in the responses.
“We were told the system would be fully operational in October 2023. They really need to get their act together to ensure they stay on time and in budget.
“Projects like this are a great opportunity to make people feel safer and help the Police to reduce crime bring wrongdoers to justice”.
The grant fund deadline has had to be extended once and there is now a 31 March 2025 deadline for expenditure or TDC will have to request another extension from the Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.
“Not only do taxpayers have a right to see this project delivered on time, but having to go back and ask for extensions on grant funding twice would do little for the Councils reputation.” Paul said.
Photo: Paul Honeywood in TDC’s CCTV Control Centre.
