CCTV monitoring in many towns across Cornwall is under threat from next year in what has been described as an “unbelievable” move.

Currently the Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service is paid by a group of 13 town and parish councils to provide live monitoring of CCTV cameras during certain times of the day from Tolvaddon, with all footage available for viewing by official request from councils or the police.

It also monitors CCTV on behalf of Cornwall Council, with the footage used in a number of successful court convictions.

The town and parish councils involved pay a combined £211,000 each year for the service to be provided.

However, under a review on the future of the fire and rescue service this looks set to be removed from its duties.

Out of the four options being put forward for review (outsourced partnership, day-crewed externally hosted IT Cloud, 24/7 crewed externally hosted IT Cloud, or do nothing – which is not considered viable) all would result in alternative arrangements needing to be found.

It has left towns being described as “incandescent” at the move.

Mike Thomas, Cornwall councillor for Helston North division, is among those unhappy.

He told the Packet: “It’s an absolutely unbelievable decision, without any consultation with towns.

“The CCTV is currently sent by signal all the way to Tolvaddon and monitored by Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service – and they do a fantastic job.

“It’s not just dealing with criminality, but also dealing with safety.

“If there is something going on they can monitor how the towns are coping. It’s fantastic. They look in and tell you what’s happening at any one point.

“It’s a great loss through Cornwall.”

He said since its inception just over ten years ago, more and more towns had joined and cameras had been added.

In Helston much of the town centre is covered by the CCTV system, as well as the Sunken Garden and Bowling Green.

Mr Thomas added: “I’ve got nothing but admiration for the people that do the work.

“I can’t believe it’s happening.”

What is being proposed? 

The Chief Fire Officer has presented a business case with varying options onto the wider future of the fire service, which will be discussed by Cornwall Council’s Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee this Thursday (March 9). A decision is then due to be made by Cabinet later this month.

A spokesperson for Cornwall Council told the Packet that a “long term solution to CCTV provision” was being looked for, adding assurances that the monitoring would continue at Tolvaddon until the end of the 2024 financial year.

They said: “Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service is reviewing how it operates its Critical Control provision outlining the options available.

“The Chief Fire Officer has presented a business case with the options and these will be discussed at the Neighbourhoods Overview and Scrutiny Committee on March 9, 2023. A decision is due to be made by Cabinet later this month.

“As part of this a full review of the CCTV provision has been undertaken and can be seen in the business case.

“We are working with wider colleagues across Cornwall Council to identify a long term solution to CCTV provision.

“Following the cabinet recommendation on March 22 we will be producing an implementation plan; CCTV provision will form a key part of this plan.

“We can give assurance we will continue to monitor at Tolvaddon SHQ throughout 2023-2024 whilst a longer term solution is identified.”

A report that will be considered at the meeting this Thursday states that the fire service’s Critical Control function in 2022/23 is forecast to overspend “by £0.179m” (£179,000), with a £0.185m (£185,000) three year average.

This includes the income generated from the CCTV and highways out of hours services of £0.211m (£211,000) and one off income of £0.009m (£9,000) that would not be available if the service is removed.

The four options being considered at Thursday’s meeting are:

Option 1: Outsourced Partnership

This would see the Critical Control function at Tolvaddon cease in its current form, and all Emergency Call functions related to the statutory function move to an existing partnership outside of Cornwall.

Staff would either TUPE transfer to the new partnership, be redeployed or potentially be at risk of redundancy because of TUPE conditions.

The Networked Fire Control Services Partnership (NFSP) that includes Devon & Somerset Fire Service has shown interested.

However, the report says that through further discussions it became clear that there are two significant issues:

1) the partnership will be onboarding another partner over the next 18 months and will not be able to accept another new partner until that is complete, and

2) the partnership will be going out in the next 12 months to open market procurement of a new Command and Control system, which would leave Cornwall obliged to accept a new system with unknown costs and no say in the procurement.

Option 2a: Day Crewed Externally Hosted IT Cloud

This would require an upgrade of the Vision4 call and mobilisation technology to a cloud-based solution over the next 12 months.

The report says that looking at the call handling and performance figures, there is a demand and cost justification to have calls answered from the Cornwall Critical Control Centre during the day and switch over to have a partner that uses a compatible system to answer calls at night.

Option 2b: 24/7 Crewed Externally Hosted IT Cloud 

This would need the same upgrade as before. The difference from option 2a is that the Cornwall Critical Control Centre would continue 24/7 operations, using a partner that has a compatible system as a resilience/business continuity backup.

This option is likely to cost more to run due to reduction in economies of scale during lower call demand at night.

Option 3: Internally Hosted IT 

Again an upgrade of technology would be needed; however, the main server infrastructure would be in the council’s own Data Centres in Cornwall, with either a local disaster recovery mirror site, or cloud-based partner resilience.

Option 4: Do Nothing

The report states: “Taking no action at this stage would allow the current unsustainable business model to continue with an end-of-life technology solution going unsupported and out of warranty, putting statutory service delivery and resident safety at unacceptable risk.

“Therefore, this option is not considered viable.”