Figures show Great Yarmouth’s CCTV system led to 519 arrests with a total of 2,404 incidents responded to by the team between April 2016 and March this year.
The CCTV is funded by the Great Yarmouth Business Improvement District (BID) and run by the Town Centre Partnership.
The aim of the BID is to make the centre of Yarmouth a safer and more attractive place for people to live and work and it has recently reported on the first year of its activities in its new form.
The renewed BID went live in April 2016 and until March this year saw £123,048 collected in business levies to help fund initiatives through the Partnership.
As well as £123,048 in levies, other income of £80,189 was also allocated to the Partnership, including local authority funding and voluntary subscriptions to give a total of £203,237 to help deliver the BID’s aim of making the town a safer, friendly town.
Its main focus on promoting the town saw the BID provide £76,751 of funding towards three street wardens, the ShopSafe retail crime initiative and the town’s CCTV system. The three street wardens patrol the town centre on a daily basis.
The annual report for the BID and Town Centre Partnership shows the wardens helped 1,374 people in 2016/17 period and attended 509 ShopSafe crime reduction scheme incidents.
The ShopSafe scheme saw police making 93 arrests with 429 incidents reported by shops and traders involved to the CCTV team.
The BID also funded many Town Centre Partnership events, including a St George’s Day school parade, an Easter treasure trail, events to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday and two annual beer festivals.
In total £62,203 was spent on what are called ‘friendly projects’ - such as marketing, footfall monitoring, events and advertising.
The third section shows overheads were £63,766.
It carried an operating surplus £517, which will go to next year’s funds.
A new five-year term for the BID was confirmed following a ballot of 191 town centre businesses in February, with 86pc of businesses voting in favour.
The Town Centre Partnership is a not for profit company and has operated since 1997.
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