Town councillors have launched a campaign to make Sherborne a safer, healthier and more environmentally friendly place to live.
A new group involving all councillors will work with police, schools, youth workers and health professionals to explore long-term solutions to shoplifting and anti-social behaviour. It will also investigate better support for youth services and improved mental health among young and old people.
This follows a debate at February’s full Town Council meeting about whether to spend more than £130,000 on a network of six CCTV cameras in and around central Sherborne.
The mayor, Cllr Anne Hall, said: “Shoplifting is a tough issue in every town across the land. We are happy to discuss grants to help install CCTV in individual businesses and we are also ready to support the Shopwatch early warning communications system. But most councillors do not believe that such an expensive CCTV network in the streets of central Sherborne will actually solve the problems we’re trying to address.
“We also want to invest in the future of our young people and work over the much longer term to help cut crime and address the root social and economic causes of anti-social behaviour.”
The CCTV report outlined a plan for street cameras in Cheap Street, Half Moon Street, Pageant Gardens, the Skate Park next to the Quarr and near the Greenhill bus stop. Pictures would be relayed back to a control centre in Dorchester and recorded there. But the control centre is not monitored round the clock.
Cllr Vaughan Coleridge-Matthews said his research among Sherborne traders over the last year led him to believe that shop crime was under-reported in Sherborne and therefore more serious than police figures suggested.
Cllr Bill Taylor, the finance portfolio holder, said: “Spending £130,000 on this particular CCTV network would mean either a big rise in council tax or significant borrowing to fund the project. I’m against both those things. And the evidence from other similar towns is that CCTV on its own does not necessarily cut crime. It can help with crime detection after the event, but does not prevent crime.
“I would much prefer a greater personal police presence in Sherborne and targeted support for individual businesses.”
All councillors supported the formation of a new group working with police, schools and youth workers to cut crime and support young people. The mayor said: “Most anti-social behaviour in Sherborne is committed by the same group of under-16s who are minors in the eyes of the law. So it is difficult for police to take action and this is one area where CCTV does not help. That is why we all need to work together towards long-term solutions and lasting support for youth services.”