Councils across Oxfordshire are working on creating CCTV hub to cover county

The plans were detailed by Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Matthew Barber during discussions with the region’s Police and Crime Panel.

Asked for an update on progress towards a CCTV partnership, Mr Barber confirmed that Oxford Direct Services (ODS) had been put forward to run the system on a county-wide basis.

It forms part of a wider plan to roll out the same equipment across the Thames Valley region, in a bid to increase efficiency and reduce costs with the force recently appointing a new CCTV manager to press ahead with the vision.

“We’ve broadly got – I think it still needs to be finalised – the specification for what we want the system to be,” said Mr Barber.

“We are looking at trying to get a single specification. We may not be there yet but when we are renewing equipment we will buy the same stuff and we are looking at what the monitoring solution will be.

“I think the first place we are likely to land something where we own everything is probably Milton Keynes because they have the control room there, we have cameras that need renewing now and we have some capital set aside by the local authority, I have put in some money, so that’s the first place to go live.

“Oxfordshire is probably the most advanced – although it may be behind Milton Keynes in terms of timing – because of all the fantastic work that has been going on between the local authorities.”