SHOPKEEPERS have been promised every effort will be made to get a town's new closed circuit television system in place by Christmas or the New Year.

The CCTV system for Bacup is being funded by an anonymous £100,000 donation and there are already plans to extend it to the town's largest council estate.

Inspector Steve Bains told a meeting of the local police and community forum that the town centre sites for five to seven cameras would be chosen shortly.

The cameras will be linked through landlines to a communications centre in Burnley and negotiations with British Telecom and Cable and Wireless are aimed at having the system in operation by the festive season. Inspector Bains said any hiccups would delay installation but he told traders: "As far as we are concerned it's full steam ahead and the cameras will be in place as fast as possible." In the long term it was hoped to extend the CCTV system to Pennine Road estate.

County Coun Kathleen Holt said, as far as shopkeepers were concerned, the cameras could not come fast enough. She said: "In the last fortnight we have had another spate of break-ins and vandalism and it is costing shopkeepers thousands of pounds just to keep going.

"These cameras can't come soon enough. If we can get them by Christmas we will be delighted."

The meeting heard that the cameras would be hooked up to a communications centre in Burnley where highly-skilled communications staff would scan the pictures and alert officers on the beat.

The anonymous donation was announced at a special Wake Up Bacup meeting of agencies working to improve life in the town. It will pay for installing the cameras and the running costs for at least five years.

Divisional Commander Mike Griffin said the task of monitoring the cameras and tracking offenders and incidents was best carried out by skilled surveillance staff.

He said: "I don't want police officers sitting in the police station looking at pictures. I want them out on the beat."

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