At the meeting of the Ross Town Council on Monday, November 14th, Debbie Stringer, the commissioning officer for Safer Herefordshire's CCTV scheme told the meeting that West Mercia police will be withdrawing the £50,000 that they contribute to help fund the operation with Herefordshire Council from April 2012.

The bill for CCTV for the county is £210,000 per year, and for Ross alone it is around £34,000 per year, to which Ross Town Council contributed £8,000 last year and will be contributing £8,500 in 2012.

The CCTV cameras, of which there are six in Ross, record images 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the records are kept for 31 days. Currently the control room is manned by one person from Sunday to Thursday and it is double manned on Friday and Saturday.

Ms Stringer outlined a proposal for managing the shortfall which does not entail losing the round the clock image recording, but may mean a reduction of man hours at certain times.

She also invited councillors to view the CCTV control room.