Councils spending more than £100m per year on CCTV

Tim Montgomerie

Via FOI requests to local councils, the BigBrotherWatch campaigning organisation has discovered that a total of £314,835,170.39 was spent on installing and operating CCTV cameras during the 2007 to 2010 period.

It compiled a table of the biggest ten spenders with LibCon Birmingham in the number one spot:

Alex Deane of BBW commented:

“This is a shocking figure.  Public money is being wasted on snooping surveillance that does next to nothing to prevent or solve crime.  We are being watched more than ever before, and we’re being ripped off into the bargain.  British taxpayers will be scandalised to see their money being thrown away like this in the current economic climate.”

Download a PDF of the Big Brother Watch Report.

Last year Gavin Barwell (now a Conservative MP) posted a defence of local councils' spending on CCTV.