'EVERY inch' of Halesowen town centre will be covered by CCTV as state-of-the-art cameras costing more than £30k are set to be installed next week.

Halesowen BID is funding the extra CCTV cameras, further to the upgrade recently carried out by Dudley Council.

Work to install high-definition wireless cameras, which will cover the whole of the town centre including the church yard, service yards and subways, providing seamless coverage, is set to begin next Monday.

The move is designed to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, drug use, fly-tipping and low-level crime to improve public safety.

The camera footage will be fed back to Cornbow Shopping Centre, where it will be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by security staff.

The system will cover every inch of the town centre, including across the church yard, service yards and subways.

Surveillance cameras will also cover Borough Court on Grammar School Lane, and Vine Lane Centre/ Centre Court where the BID has commercial business members.

BID manager Vicky Rogers said: "The investment has come about following a recent survey conducted, which showed that one of the main concerns members of the public have when visiting town centres is public safety and security. "The state-of-the-art camera system will help to eradicate antisocial behaviour and low level crime as well as fly-tipping that has been reported in service yard areas across the town.

"We are living in an era of ‘big brother is watching you’ and if this means we keep our community safe then so be it.

"The project has been welcomed by members of the BID and will make a real difference to the local people and traders too."

The new system will be complimented by the town centre radio link that was purchased by Halesowen BID with funding from the community forum back in summer 2019.

Security staff at Cornbow Shopping Centre, who will be monitoring the system, are equipped with BID radios so will be able to communicate relevant observations to the other businesses on the radio link, there are now over 50 radios distributed across the BID area.

Halesowen BID also has an information sharing agreement with West Midlands Police so Vicky said the extra coverage will help to gather vital evidence should incidents occur.