Lincolnshire county council have admitted that 1 in 4 of their moving CCTV cameras do not work correctly.
The City Council operates 119 cameras. 63 of these are moving cameras.
The council are discussing plans to repair the broken cameras that were installed almost 20 years ago.
The broken cameras, that have pan, tilt and zoom functions, have been removed from their automatic settings to reduce wear on their moving parts.
In 2014/15, the council spent over £110,000 on equipment and maintenance. Council bosses are now considering spending an extra £200,000 to fit new fibre optic cables.
If the plans go ahead, there could be a budget saving of over £160,000 by 2021.
Another option for the council would be to install an IP CCTV system to replace the fibre optic system.
The system would cost £300,000 but would save almost £550,000 in the next five years.
The IP CCTV system would have the data transferred online, which would be very valuable to Lincolnshire Police.
This year and last, Lincoln’s CCTV have helped the police deal with 14,000 incidents and 1,800 arrests.
The Council’s community services manager Caroline Bird said:”the city’s CCTV system is a vital tool to protect residents, businesses and visitors.”
