Home Office funding for crime-busting CCTV cameras in Cumbria will enable a brand new scheme to be installed in Dalton, while in Kendal plans are in the pipeline to keep local monitoring of the town's screens.

The Government announced this week that it is to give £253,120 towards a 'Safer Furness' project, which will fund three new cameras on Market Street in the centre of Dalton, as well as help extend the existing scheme in Barrow.

A bid of £211,000 has also been approved to modernise and centralise Cumbria Constabulary's monitoring facilities so that the 100-plus cameras across the county can be viewed at any time from the police control rooms in Penrith and Workington.

Although no new money has been provided for the CCTV system in Kendal, plans are under way to move monitoring equipment from Kendal police station to the Westmorland Shopping Centre, where an extra member of staff will be taken on to view the screens from 7.30am to 7.30pm.

In the evening, when the centre is closed, the screens will be monitored by police at Penrith.

Equipment will also be kept at the station in Kendal to allow officers to view the screens if there is an incident in the town which they need to monitor.

The new monitoring arrangements - which it is hoped will be in place by the end of the year - follow anger last September from Kendal traders who feared that if all monitoring took place in Penrith the effectiveness of the system would be undermined.

See this week's Gazette for the full story.