BATHURST Regional Council is preparing for the second stage of its central business district (CBD) closed-circuit television (CCTV) network to go live.
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Residents will have noticed ground works occurring around the CBD in recent months, which have been for underboring and cabling.
In a recent report, council's director of Cultural and Community Services, Alan Cattermole, said that works on the second stage were being finalised.
"Additional cameras are being installed as part of stage two, providing new areas of coverage in the CBD," he said.
As the scheme is about to expand, council was required to update its CBD CCTV Code of Practice to reflect the changes.
Where it was previously stated that there were nine cameras, the wording will be updated to say that the system "involves 19 cameras connected to a central location in the Bathurst Regional Council Civic Centre by a fibre network".
The code will also be updated to list the new locations of the cameras.
This includes an additional camera in Howick Street, three more in Machattie Park, and five cameras in locations previously not covered by CCTV.
Mr Cattermole said the second stage of the network is scheduled to be live by the end of June.
A map of the areas under surveillance will be uploaded to the council website.
Once stage two is switched on, there will be five kilometres of footpath coverage in the CBD.
The cameras will feed images into Bathurst Police Station and, although the footage won't be monitored 24-seven, they can be used in fighting crime.
Councillors have long been calling for council to have a comprehensive CCTV network in the Bathurst CBD.
After the recent update, they shared their excitement to have this project well under way.
"This is a long time coming. Nineteen cameras is just fantastic," Cr Alex Christian said.
"I think conversation may have started back in around 1997, and we've got this done with the help of the Federal Government, I think it's just absolutely outstanding."
Deputy mayor Ian North issued a thank you, after saying that getting a CCTV network had been "a bugbear of mine" for years.
Council has spent close to $1 million to established the network.