A report on CCTV in the area says there has been a ‘slow uptake’ from police officers on the service as data on its usage was revealed.
The annual report to the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership, of which South Holland District Council is a part, says in the last financial year there were 118 recorded CCTV ‘incidents’ in the district.
These are categorised as ‘happenings that deviates from the normal or expected course of events’.
Of these 60 led to arrests in South Holland.
There were nearly five times more ‘incidents’ recorded on CCTV in East Lindsey (506) while Boston saw 286 incidents between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.
There were 185 arrests in East Lindsey as a result of CCTV and 119 in Boston.
CCTV footage was used in 119 ‘evidence packages’ locally though, the report to go before South Holland District Council’s Performance Monitoring Panel next week states.
During the time period, the most common use of the CCTV cameras in South Holland was for violence and sexual assault.
There were 26 ‘incidents’ recorded up from 17 in the previous 12 months.
The next highest was public order (14) and shoplifting (13) both of which were minimal increases on previous years.
The number of traffic offences looked at in the district nearly doubled from seven in 2022-23 to 12 in 2023-24.
The biggest drop was in weapons with just five incidents in the most recent data compared with 16 the previous year.
CCTV wasn’t useful in any bike thefts in South Holland, the data states.
The most active camera in South Holland was in Hall Place, Spalding with 31 incidents logged.
The top 13 most active cameras in the district were all in Spalding.
Winsover Road (20) and Market Place (18) saw the next two most incidents.
The three cameras in Holbeach High Street were either used four or five times, Crowland West Street three times and Trinity Bridge and South Street cameras both twice.
The CCTV report states: “Our CCTV service has recruited a small set of volunteers with the help of Lincolnshire Police. The purpose of these volunteers will be to monitor live camera feeds and spot unreported crime and anti-social behaviour. If successful, this scheme will be expanded in the future.”
However another part of the report states: “One CCTV volunteer continues to work weekly on a Monday. Further volunteers are being assessed; however the intake is being paused as there has been slow uptake from police officers in regards to utilising this resource.
“Further communications with local town sergeants are taking place to encourage officers into taking advantage of the volunteer resource.”
