Hunter Security Monitoring Managing Director, Wayne O’Brien, who operates out of premises on George Booth Drive, said such a system could have any number of cameras in place at whatever locations thought necessary.

All these would be monitored back to base 24 hours a day and would be fitted with an alarm mechanism that means that as well as scanning an area they react to noise and focus on a hot spot where there’s trouble.

Mr. O’Brien put on a meeting at Kurri Workers Club about a month ago to inform local businesses and council about what was available.

He said he has not heard from council and can only assume they are not interested or cannot afford the outlay.

He said council would not need to buy the equipment as it can be rented and there are rebates to help defray the cost. Monitoring the screens is quite inexpensive but he could not estimate what the rental cost would be without knowing firstly if council is interested and secondly to what extent they would want the cameras to cover.

Mr. O’Brien added that while council would seem to be the main player in getting CCTV in hot spots around the towns, local businesses should also be prepared to get on board and be pro-active about extra forms of security for their properties as well as deterring vandalism.

While the debate over installation of CCTV security has been discussed over a number of years, a report in last Wednesday night’s council agenda referred to a question without notice by the then-councillor Catherine Parsons in August 2008 about having cameras placed in Vincent Street, Cessnock.

In brief, council has been in touch with the Attorney-General’s department to find out if funds were available to install the cameras.

The report said that the Attorney-General’s department was in touch with council in September and advised that the application for CCTV funding had been unsuccessful.

The report went on to say that a big number of applications had been received and the funding was competitive.

According to the report, at the present time there are nil further funding opportunities available for CCTV.

Vandalism to council’s parks and public amenities so far this year has cost $34,991.