Britain has more CCTV cameras than anywhere else on planet earth. As one report says there is one CCTV camera for every 11 people. Thats a lot of CCTV. Makes you wonder how many that would be in Wales more than anything. Not being nasty to anywhere in particular, but Wales is a pretty boring place compared to others. Why would we need to have so much CCTV? This is what got me thinking.
CCTV is not operated by central government, it is a local council issue. What if we ask all councils in Wales how many CCTV cameras they have? Wouldn't that be interesting? You know what is coming don't you? So an FOI request was sent asking:
- How many CCTV camera each locality has
- How many people operate them
- How much it costs to maintain them
The results are (Partly) in and here they are:
Name
|
CCTV
|
People
|
Costs
|
Blaenau
|
Not Answered
| ||
Bridgend
|
126
|
8
|
20000
|
Caerphilly
|
160
|
10
|
36476
|
Cardiff
|
306
|
2
|
169020
|
Carmarthenshire
|
87
|
0
|
unable
|
Ceredigion
|
None
| ||
Conway
|
115
|
9
|
410350
|
Denbighshire
|
78
|
1
|
44451
|
Flintshire
|
72
|
8
|
32400
|
Gwynedd
|
69
|
8
|
23310
|
Anglesey
|
Not Answered
| ||
Merthyr Tydfil
|
90
|
7
|
48840
|
Monmouth
|
None
| ||
Neath Port Talbot
|
99
|
6 full, 2 part
|
24800
|
Newport
|
35
|
12
|
7500
|
Pembroke
|
1250
|
0
|
175000
|
Powys
|
Unable
| ||
RCT
|
Not Answered
| ||
Swansea
|
Not Answered
|
Torfaen
|
267
|
6
|
unable
|
Vale Of Glamorgan
|
76
|
3
|
17000
|
Wrexham
|
Not Answered
| ||
I should point out that Ceredigion got back to me in LITERALLY seconds on this one to tell me that they had none. No mucking about, no exaggeration they answered me in SECONDS to tell me that they had none. Good eh? Brownie point to them!
Isnt this interesting? You can see that Torfaen has almost as many as Cardiff! Amazing! The really interesting thing is I also asked all the police forces in Wales how many they had and they ALL refused to answer. Hmm…
Now I will be honest and say that I wrote this section of the blog after it was finished (the bit below was written before this section too). The reason is because I only just got Pembroke councils answer. 1250!!! That's a heck of a lot of CCTV for what is essentially a very boring part of the world (I say that in the very nicest sense… Think of it like this, Pembrokians, when was the last time you saw a car chase or a massive drug bust?). Why do they need that many CCTV? Hmmm….
That being said a couple of things came to me as I was writing this. They are:
Only time will tell
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