MARTIN DALES, chairman of Ryedale Cameras in Action puts the question of CCTV into focus.

Ryedale’s head of police, Inspector Andy Everitt is right to point out the combined effect of reduced levels of street-lighting and lack of funding for CCTV in Malton, Norton and potentially other market towns.

In 1997, Ryedale District Council, North Yorkshire Police, the town councils of Malton, Norton and Pickering made a successful bid to the Home Office for thousands of pounds of public money to put 14 cameras in the towns with a control centre at Malton Police Station.

In addition, this bid was supported by generous contributions from businesses and individual residents. The management of the scheme was taken on by Ryedale Cameras in Action (RCIA), which was set up as a charity to utilise tax advantages of donations; it has been supported in operational ways ever since by Ryedale District Council.

In the original leaflet of 1997 appealing to people to support the revenue costs of the scheme, it says, “RCIA is a registered charity whose aim is to support the management and development of CCTV systems to help in protecting people and property.”

The leaflet continues, “Malton, Norton and Pickering are good places to be – let’s keep them that way. We all know that dangers exist, but we can do something about preserving the security we want and combating anti-social behaviour. CCTV will help by dissuading criminals from coming into this area and making policing more effective throughout the whole district. CCTV is an investment in our future safety and the security of our towns.”

So is the message of 1997 any different in 2014?

Those of us involved in RCIA today think not – I was a founder member in 1997.

The threats of criminals are all around us, anti-social behaviour still exists regularly in the district, particularly in the night-time economy and travelling criminals can easily take advantage of us – we have the evidence on CCTV and the police do a great job in tackling those responsible.

Ryedale District Council has a statutory responsibility for the safety of its community and if we’re not careful we will end up as the island district where criminals and hooligans can do what they like.

Two years ago, a former leader of the district council came to the conclusion that RCIA (and separately the Malton and Norton skate park) should manage their own affairs by applying for a grant. I was never quite sure why these two bodies were picked upon particularly as it costs about £25,000 per year to run CCTV.

RCIA’s grant from Ryedale expires on April 1 2015, so what do we do next?

We believe the operation of CCTV sits neatly with the aims of the Safer Ryedale partnership and would be best managed from there, but there is a need for money from RCIA’s partners to go with it and we have proposed to the district council that in the interim we take it over together with the balance of the existing grant funding.

Pickering Town Council decided some time ago that it didn’t want to support its CCTV cameras, so they are non-operational and the cameras will be dismantled and used in Malton and Norton instead.

For Ryedale District Council, however, it is a different story. Having decided that the majority of new house-building will be in Malton and Norton, there will be a vast increase in the number of people in the two towns and thus an increase in the amount of council tax and new homes bonus revenue received; they also have the community investment levy and the business rates coming in, and then there is the capital receipt for Wentworth Street car park.

We had rather hoped that with the coming of a new leader for the Conservative group that controls Ryedale, there might be a change of heart and vision from the party of law and order, especially with the added threat of terrorism put into the crime mix.

On one hand, we have received a positive encouragement to apply to the district council for continued support, not necessarily from the revenue budget, but from the other pots of money which are intended for community use. On the other hand, there are mixed messages as to whether RCIA will be successful in its bid: it is all too uncertain.

We have future-proof plans for CCTV in Malton and Norton (and wider) to make it a cheaper and more effective system and by introducing 24/7 monitoring – Scarborough, York, Hambleton around us have full support from their councils and all have recently upgraded systems paid for by council taxpayers.