PRESTWICH is set to become one of the first towns in the county to install state-of-the-art CCTV equipment which will identify known criminals.

Bosses behind the camera scheme, set to be installed within the next couple of weeks at a cost of almost £1 million, plan to include a pioneering system that can instantly recognise the faces of wanted villains on their monitors.

The new "facial recognition" arm to CCTV schemes was launched in Tameside this week after a successful test in Newham, London, where it resulted in a fall in crime and more detections.

And Prestwich is hoping to follow suit.

Project manager Martin Hall, who works for Bury Council's environment and development services department, said Tameside was one of the first boroughs in the country to introduce the new software.

Mr Hall added: "We are hoping to incorporate the same facial recognition aspect and will be the first in Manchester to do so. When someone is arrested the police will take a digital photograph of them which will be kept on a database. If that person is wanted by the police or excluded from a particular area and then shows up on our CCTV cameras, an alarm will be raised."

Mr Hall said he was confident the scheme would reduce crime in Prestwich and there were certain targets they had to hit to prove its success.

He said: "The message to criminals is that they will be watched all over Prestwich. Not just in the shopping centre and near banks but we will also cover the main getaway areas and the routes to the motorway and towards Salford."

The long-awaited equipment, costing £915,000, was the result of a successful Home Office bid for funding by Bury's Community Safety Partnership.

A total of 22 cameras will be installed at strategic points in the town, providing 24-hour monitoring, and linked up directly to a control room in Bradley Fold.

Mr Hall said a site meeting will be held next Wednesday and installation will begin "imminently", with the whole scheme up and running in July.