BIG Brother will not be watching you in Wyre town centresafter incoming council leaders axed a 24-hour CCTV scheme.

Wyre's previous Labour ruling group was in the midst of launching the £715,000 spy camera scheme to deter town centre crime when it lost power in May.

Now Labour members will be battling to save the scheme at the next full council on July 29 after the Tories moved to scrap the scheme on cost grounds last week - as well as high start-up costs, the 39 cameras in Poulton, Thornton Cleveleys, Fleetwood and Garstang would need £230,000 a year to run.

Coun Geoff Horrocks, Labour group chairman and Wyre Community Safety Partnership member, fumed: "It's bound to have an adverse effect on public safety. It was a central plank of our community safety strategy drawn up with the police and Lancashire County Council, which the Tories supported in March and which highlighted that people's main concerns were risk of violence and juvenile crime. CCTV was one way of addressing those issues."

The scheme - in which Wyre Housing Association would run the control room - had been budgeted for, and contracts signed with suppliers which would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation: "An absolute waste of council taxpayers' money," he said.

But Tory council leader Pat Catlow said the contracts would be terminated on the best terms available. Officers had explored the possibility of government aid but had drawn a blank, she added: "It was a difficult decision to make but we had very real concerns that the running costs, in particular, could not be fully justified. People can, however, be assured that the council remains committed to working with partners throughout the borough to combat crime and fear of crime."

Labour group leader Coun Richard Anyon said he was appalled - though a lot of money was involved, partnerships with private enterprise would have cut outlays and the whole borough would have benefited.

Wyre MP Hilton Dawson is due to meet Coun Catlow tomorrow to voice his concern: "My experience of the CCTV scheme in Lancaster is that it has had marked benefits in both reducing crime and helping people feel safer," he said.

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