MOBILE CCTV vans could cruise Wyre to combat crime after a plan for fixed spy cameras was thrown out.

Wyre police have asked the borough council to consider the video van as a lower-cost alternative to the rejected scheme which would have put 30 fixed cameras in Poulton, Fleetwood, Thornton, Cleveleys and Garstang.

The plan fell through earlier this month (July) as the new Conservative administration declared it was too dear - at £715,000 to set up and £230,000 a year to run.

But a van with a camera mounted on top would cost a fraction of that - a pilot scheme in Chorley cost the council £42,000 to set up and £4,000 a year to run said a report from police to Wyre policy committee on Tuesday. The hope is to mount a joint bid for government funding under the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme's CCTV initiative.

The idea was grasped wholeheartedly, said council leader Coun Pat Catlow: "The voting was unanimous. We regard it as a very good way forward, very viable and an excellent means of helping the overall strategy against crime."

The committee even suggested two or three vans could be financed, but at this stage they were just discussing the principle and would get down to details later, said Coun Catlow.

Labour group chairman Coun Geoff Horrocks, who had been bitterly disappointed when Labour's previous scheme bit the dust, said: "Anything is better than nothing, but it would have been far more effective if it had been alongside a fixed town centre CCTV system like it is in Chorley."

A police spokesman said the Chorley scheme had proved a great success. in both crime prevention and detection.

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