Shoplifters target town

Inspector Richard Allum told town councillors on Tuesday that shoplifters were travelling from Eastbourne to carry out raids because they knew their crimes would not be recorded and nobody would know who they were.

This was one problem that could be tackled through the introduction of cameras covering the High Street. Others included car crime which was prevalent in the town, public order problems and violent crime.

Insp Allum said CCTV was extremely effective. Across Sussex between January and November 1,188 arrests had been started by CCTV. Of those, 530 were for violence and 200 for car crime.

Insp Allum said that since he moved to Uckfield in May CCTV had been at the top of the list of things he wanted to pursue. He was now in touch with a variety of bodies which might contribute to a system and he appealed to the council for financial support.

He said a Home Office scheme to pay 50 per cent of the costs of installing CCTV systems in town centres had come to an end. Previous moves to provide cameras had stalled because of costs in the region of 130,000 but a system he was investigating would cost 30,000 for four cameras, 3,000 towards monitoring costs and maintenance of up to 4,000 a year.

He was hoping to be in a position to move forward in April and said that while this was not Uckfield's last chance to get CCTV the town had missed the boat in previous years and he was keen to press ahead with a scheme now.

He gave assurances that the introduction of CCTV would make no difference to the number of police patrolling in Uckfield and combatted calls for more police on the beat saying there were many other facets of policing to be covered, too.

'Some of the greater threats to our society don't materialise on the High Street. They materialise out of sight. There are issues of terrorism, issues like those on our televisions this evening of paedophilia, issues of violent crime within society, issues relating to guns which mean we have to have an armed response unit available in the county 24 hours a day. All these are calls on our resourcing at the same time as we try to ensure high visibility policing within the town.'

l When the council considered its budget options after watching a demonstration of the CCTV system, members agreed to include 2,000 towards CCTV provision 'as a goodwill token'.