A town-wide CCTV scheme should be revisited again, Rhayader Town Council has agreed

Councillor Rachel Smalley brought up the subject at a recent town council meeting after a ‘particularly nasty burglary at the butchers’.

Watsons Family Butchers had to close their doors after they were broken into at sometime between 12pm Sunday, November 16 and 8am on Monday, November 17.

A lot of equipment and meat was stolen, the whole building was left in a mess and the shop had to be closed for a few days while it was cleaned up.

Councillor Smalley told members we need some CCTV in the town.

Mayor Councillor Christian Walton said the council had talked about the subject previously along with town wi-fi and he said that would allow them to go into CCTV.

But he said at the moment the centre of the town us on exchange lines and the town has not been offered anything other than 20 Mb, so there is not a lot of broadband speed.

He said this had stopped discussions of a CCTV scheme being operated.

“If they had plans to upgrade the broadband in the town then we could look at it again but they have not, as far as we are aware. If that happened we could go through the router,” he said.

Town and County Councillor Angela Davies said: “There is quite a lot of a lot of CCTV in the town and the owners do share the footage with the police if they are asked to but on the night of the burglary the CCTV at a nearby business was not working properly. It can be useful,” she said.

Councillor Walton said the town council should re-visit the issue of CCTV and maybe the tourism project group could talk about the wi-fi project for the town again.”

Members noted the report and agreed that CCTV should be looked at again.