The latest in Croydon's comprehensive armoury of CCTV surveillance equipment to combat crime came under the spotlight on Friday when a team of senior Home Office

officials paid a fact-finding visit to the borough.

Croydon Council took the team on a tour of the new CCTV control rooms located in the local authority's Taberner House headquarters and in the multi-storey car parks at Fairfield, Wandle Road and Purley, as well as to view cameras covering Purley town centre and New Addington.

All are being funded by the Government under its crime reduction programme.

Three months ago the local authority won a further £500,000 of funding for three additional schemes that will extend CCTV coverage from Croydon town centre in the north, all the way along the A23 corridor through West Croydon, Broad Green, Thornton Heath pond to Norbury's main shopping centre.

There will also be a spur from the pond along Brigstock Road to connect up with the existing network around Thornton Heath station.

This means by April 2002 the borough will be overseen by a protective network of more than 500 cameras all monitored and recorded 24 hours a day from linked state-of-the-art security control rooms.

Councillor Gerry Ryan, Croydon's cabinet member for highways, transportation and public services, said: "By the time all our new cameras are installed Croydon will have one of the biggest and most sophisticated CCTV networks in the country.

"The aim of the fact-finding visit is to bring the Home Office up to speed with what we are doing."

November 12, 2001 14:00