Brighton and Hove spent £592,000 on CCTV cameras in four years

In a new survey publshed by Big Brother Watch, spending on CCTV cameras is compared across all of the UK's local authorities.

In all £515 million was spent on CCTV in 2007-11, installing, operating and maintaining a total of 51,600 CCTV cameras controlled by 428 local authorities in Britain.

Birmingham has the highest total expenditure on CCTV cameras with a total spend of over £14 million, while Leicester has the highest number of CCTV cameras with 2,083 in total.

Five authorities now have more than 1,000 CCTV cameras: Leicester, Fife, Wandsworth, Nottingham, and Southampton.

As for Brighton and Hove, we come in at 235 out of 428, the City Council spending £592,385, with 73 CCTV cameras.

Our neighbours in Lewes don't seem to be great believers in the benefits of CCTV, being right at the bottom of the spending list with £0.00, with no CCTV cameras at all.

Big Brother Watch has estmated that if the total cost of council provision of CCTV could be compared to the following positions in other policing services it would fund 5,893 PCSOs, the equivalent of the whole West Yorkshire Police Force, or 4,121 Constables the equivalent of the whole of Northumbria Police Force.

Read the full report here