PCC wins extra funding to support the Midland Road Safer Street Project improving CCTV across Bedford

A Safer Streets Project to upgrade the CCTV system for residents in Bedford has received extra funding.

Bedfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, Kathryn Holloway, has won a further £30,000 supporting the Safer Streets Project after a successful bidding process.

The OPCC, with the support of the Bedford Community Safety Partnership, was successful in its bid for additional funding from the Home Office.

The fund of £30,000 will be used to support the new CCTV platform, which will deliver a more resilient local network of CCTV capability within the Safer Street area, including the ability to follow intruders.

This additional funding was crucial to the work which has already commenced to enable the project to deliver the Smart technology required.

In July, as a result of two successful bids submitted to the Home Office’s Safer Streets Campaign by the PCC's office and its partners, the areas of High Town in Luton and Midland Road in Bedford were awarded £448,150 and £434,000 respectively to improve safety.

The improvements included enhancing CCTV coverage using brand new technology to follow intruders, new gating around car parks and back alleys to prevent criminals from gaining access to homes or stealing cars, advanced home security equipment including doorbells showing the caller and bespoke crime prevention advice for both residents and businesses plus a community centre for the Midland Road area.

The PCC said: "This extra money will upgrade Bedford Borough’s CCTV system and allow it to work with the footage from the state of the art new equipment in the Midland Road area but also any installed by the council elsewhere across the borough could then feed into its system.

"If intruders get into private property or are behaving suspiciously in alleys and car parks they will not only show up clearly but will be followed by the new CCTV cameras as they move around the area of Midland Road.

"This should prove a very significant deterrent to criminal activity indeed and will be of excellent evidential value to Bedfordshire Police.”

The new fund comes after the launch earlier this month of the new Safer Streets Centre in Prebend Street, Bedford which has been funded by the PCC.

The community centre will see charities and other organisations providing specialist support and services to residents and will act as a visiting base for the Bedford Police Community Hub team of officers and PCSOs, providing higher visibility for police in the area and ease of contact for residents to pass on their crime and safeguarding concerns.

The PCC-funded victim support service, Signpost will also be provided with space in the community centre and will regularly deploy its specialist Victim Care Coordinators to work there.

If you have been affected by a crime, Signpost offers free and confidential support to victims in Bedfordshire, whether it has been reported to police or not and irrespective of where and when the crime occurred.

For more information click here or call 0800 0282 887.