Westhoughton Town Council eyes up locations for new town centre CCTV

Westhoughton town councillors will be eyeing up town centre locations for new CCTV cameras with the help of local police officers.

The Liberal Democrat run town council is looking to improve and enhance the existing town centre CCTV scheme.

To help decide the best locations for the security cameras, town councillors and police will be carrying out a site visit on Wednesday.

Town councillor Gillian Wroe, who is leading a CCTV working group, said: “This is an important next step in our plans to make our town centre safer for everyone to enjoy.

“Many councillors have now been to visit the security centre where the cameras are monitored and this is helping to inform what we need to do next to improve the scheme.

“The town centre CCTV has been in operation for around 30 years - but technology has moved on fast, with better quality cameras now available.

“There’s no quick fix to this as we want to get it right since we are spending public money, but we are working as quickly as we can to get to a good place.”

The cameras do not currently cover the town centre car parks at Ditchfield or Library Street, which have both been a recent hotspot for car vandalism.

The car parks are owned by Bolton Council, who have currently refused to contribute to the costs of extending coverage to these areas.