Love Salisbury visits Salisbury CCTV as they look for new operators

Salisbury CCTV is looking for new volunteers and so Love Salisbury’s Head of News, Beth Doherty, went down to the CCTV control room at Bournehill to take a look at what the role entails.

At present, Salisbury’s state-of-the-art CCTV system is managed by 25 volunteers and 3 part-time paid operatives. One of those paid operatives is Richard Goodman, who has dedicated almost 30 years to Wiltshire Police as a Sergeant. Now, he is the Salisbury CCTV Manager.

Ideally, Richard would like a team of 40 volunteers to ensure that the CCTV system can be operated and monitored at key times to help reduce the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour in the city, improve the safety and security of residents, visitors and businesses, and facilitate the prosecution service by providing evidence of offenders.

Richard describes the role as an exciting and demanding job and as a result of my visit to Salisbury CCTV I can see why. Working alongside local security and the police, CCTV operatives are the “eye in the sky”, able to watch over the city and feed information back to those on the ground providing an essential service to those fighting crime in the city centre.

For Richard, the role is perfect for those with a strong sense of honesty, integrity and inquisitiveness.

New volunteers will be trained to a professional standard to monitor the state-of-the-art CCTV system in the communications hub inside the CCTV control room.

Richard and his team can train around 12 new volunteers a year and get them to a standard where they can operate on their own. However, volunteers do work better in pairs.

Richard explained, “I am looking to increase the team of volunteer CCTV Operators, this is a challenging demanding role. The dedicated team of volunteers help to make Salisbury a Safer place to live, work and visit.

“They support and work with many businesses through Shopwatch and Pubwatch, and the Police. We will give you all the training you need and we ask for you to volunteer 16 hours a month."

“If you would like to find out more please contact me.”

A CCTV volunteer who has been in the role for 14 years said, “I love Salisbury and that is my main reason for doing it, to help keep the city safe.

“It’s a great job if you are a bit nosey and it is also a great escape because when you are in here you can’t really think of anything else - you are really immersed in what you are doing.

“It’s a great team and when you have periods when you are investigating crime and capturing evidence for police requests it’s an amazing thing to do and it is so intresting.

“It’s a great thing to do alongside a lot of good people doing good things. It would be great to have some more female volunteers and some more young people too because they have a great insight - people from all walks of life are welcome.”

The CCTV system is jointly funded by Salisbury City Council and Salisbury BID who invest £25,000 a year into the city’s CCTV coverage. The system reportedly costs around £50,000 a year to run on a voluntary basis.

Spaces are now available for the September CCTV Operators course.

To enquire about volunteering as a CCTV Operator, please contact Richard Goodman on 07849088205 or Rgoodman@salisburycitycouncil.gov.uk.