The CCTV User Group recently published a report on the August 2011 Riots and the performance of CCTV, in which it was argued that because of the successful police operations following the recent unrest in England 'the real effectiveness of public area CCTV can be shown in such indisputable ways to the Government, the Local Authorities, the media and the public'

Over a month after the August riots and looting in London and the surrounding areas, thousands of people were still being identified and arrested as a direct result of public area CCTV and video clips from cameras that were 'body worn' by the police.

Such a positive conclusion could not have been reached without this CCTV and police camera pictures, along with the endless work of the police back office staff.

In the public area CCTV control rooms experienced CCTV operators would have manipulated the cameras onto the specific events to not only give an overview to enable police co-ordination at the time but, where possible, to receive identification quality images for possible prosecution.

It is because of the capacity to do this that CCTV is of great value worldwide.

There have been several national press articles quibbling that CCTV is not an efficient tool in fighting crime, such as "CCTV Boom Has Failed to Slash Crime, say Police" trilled the Guardian, whilst the Telegraph followed up with "1000 CCTV Cameras to Solve One Crime Met Police Admits" and The Times chimed in with "CCTV Images Offer No Help In Solving Crimes".

In spite of that, as Matthew Griffiths' reveals in his 'Town Centre CCTV: An Examination of Crime Reduction in Gillingham, Kent', after CCTV was introduced in some towns in Kent, those making use of it did see significant reductions in crime figures compared to towns that did not have CCTV.

Griffiths concludes that 'CCTV can successfully reduce offences such as shoplifting and vehicle crimes and therefore can be perceived as a good thing' and adds that 'it is best utilised in conjunction with other crime prevention measures, media publicity and the continued support of the Police'.

The difficulty is that Local Authorities who pay for and handle the vast majority of the public area CCTV systems in the UK, are under acute budget constraints and as CCTV is not a statutory responsibility for them, in contrast to education or social services for example, it can be an easy target for cutbacks.

Throughout the country cuts are being pushed through to cope in the on-going recession. Maybe that is what it will take in order to see the true value of CCTV in Kent?