New £130,000 CCTV van to help Nottinghamshire Police crack down on anti-social behaviour
The van cost more than £100,000
By Henry Green
A new police van with 360-degree views and a thirty-times magnification has been deployed to tackle anti-social behaviour and crime in Nottingham.
The vehicle has CCTV cameras allowing Nottinghamshire Police to enter areas of high criminality and capture evidence with the footage.
The camera is part of a £130,000 project and is located on top of a police van.
About £35,000 of the money provided to fund the vehicle came from Nottinghamshire Police, with the rest coming via a Home Office grant.
Nottinghamshire Police Inspector, Paul Ferguson, was the driving force behind the new van.
At a launch event at the Forest Recreation Ground, he told Notts TV: “The van will help us to take action against people committing crimes of anti-social behaviour in the area and deal with those offences that we then identify.
“Wherever it is deployed, with it being a marked vehicle it will provide a deterrent but also there’s cameras on it that will allow us to use that as evidence.”
The CCTV van is designed to improve resident safety by acting as a deterrent but also capturing real-time evidence.
Areas such as Forest Recreation Ground, where there have been reports of anti-social behaviour including safety fears at night, will benefit from the vehicle.
The camera also has a telescopic mast, which can reach a height of more than three metres.
The footage can also be viewed remotely from the force control room, allowing, where necessary for real-time information to be passed onto officers.
Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Gary Godden, told Notts TV: “It’s really important that we target the right people and we prosecute where we need to prosecute.
“With anti-social behaviour prevention is one of the actions, I think that it’s a tool and it makes sure we are serving our community in the right way.
“Information from the van can be relayed to officers on the ground so an instant response can be created and it can be really targeted so we can get the resource that we need to the incident as soon as we need to.”
Explore more
