Oswestry CCTV: The Town That Watched Itself… and Learned Nothing

Welcome to Oswestry – where blinking cameras abound, but accountability and results are conspicuously absent. The CCTV system, hailed once as the ‘best in Shropshire’, is now looking more like an expensive relic from a Cold War garage sale.

For those unfamiliar, Oswestry Town Council has managed to spend just shy of £100,000 on its CCTV setup since 2019. That’s a lot of money to spend on a system that can’t prove it works, doesn’t follow procurement law, and may not even know who legally owns the data it’s collecting. If incompetence were an Olympic sport, this would be a podium finish.

VALUE FOR MONEY? DON’T BE SILLY

Since 2019, Oswestry Town Council OTC has spent just under £93,000 on its CCTV system. This money has flowed primarily to a single individual – Jim Stafford – described by Oswestry Town Council as a ‘Contractor’ who has managed the system without a visible contract, without a public job description, and without any evidence of a competitive hiring process. The arrangement smells less of good governance and more of jobs for the boys, with invoices appearing like clockwork, but results vanishing into the mist.

You’d think that after £93,000 and years of operation, Oswestry could show a reduction in anti-social behaviour, a few prosecutions aided by CCTV, or perhaps any evaluation of effectiveness.

Nope.

The crime stats remain stubbornly high, and West Mercia Police can’t even confirm whether the CCTV has contributed to a single conviction. Meanwhile, towns like Wem, Ellesmere and Market Drayton manage with a fraction of the budget – and at least know who’s doing the watching.

THE INVISIBLE VOLUNTEERS

Much has been made of Oswestry’s ‘CCTV volunteers’. So much, in fact, that one might assume a team of eager local guardians. Yet, upon inspection, there appears to be no evidence that these volunteers exist. No rota. No names. No sightings. If they’re out there, they’re doing a cracking job of staying hidden – MI6 could take notes. So, is this a town-run safety operation or simply one man’s hobby project with a camera feed and a fondness for invoices?

CRIME STATS: BIG BROTHER’S BAD REPORT CARD

Despite the expense, Oswestry remains far from safe. With 100 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents in 2023 – 43% higher than the Shropshire average – the town still battles significant issues. Violent and sexual offences top the list, while shoplifting rates are nearly four times the national average. Clearly, the watchful eyes of CCTV are more like squinting spectators. Meanwhile, West Mercia Police can’t confirm if a single prosecution has ever relied on the footage. It’s like buying a security dog that barks only when it dreams.

GDPR: THE RULES THEY NEVER READ

Anyone operating CCTV under UK GDPR must know – and publicly state – who the Data Controller is. (hint: it’s them) They must publish a Privacy Impact Assessment, provide guidance on Subject Access Requests, (spoiler: there isn’t one) and maintain records of data processing. Oswestry Town Council has done none of this. Residents are filmed but have no route to challenge how their images are used. And on the rare occasions where a member of the public has the temerity to ask for a copy of the footage, invariably the camera is pointing in the wrong direction – funny that. (so good luck with that) It’s all very 1984 – just without the effort or documentation.

Put plainly: Oswestry is harvesting personal data without following the laws that govern it. The cameras might work, but the policy brains behind them are stuck in sleep mode.

THE RADIO FIASCO: FROM DIRECT LINE TO DIAL-UP

In 2023, West Mercia Police ended Stafford’s access to police radios. Instead, he now must ring 101 – the non-emergency line infamous for its hold music and endless delays. So, when a fight breaks out, the man in the control room must sit back, dial in, and hope the offenders stick around for a chat. It’s progress, apparently.

BOLTING AI ONTO THE BONNET OF A RUST BUCKET

Elsewhere in the country, councils are busily bolting AI onto their CCTV systems. These upgrades include facial recognition, automated loitering alerts, and behaviour prediction models. But without basic governance, this is like attaching a Ferrari spoiler to a 1992 Vauxhall Astra. AI can wrongly tag pensioners as threats when they are just shaking their sticks at pigeons, children as loiterers, and litter-pickers as burglars. And when it fails? Everyone blames the algorithm. Without human oversight and data responsibility – neither of which Oswestry appears to have – it’s a recipe for errors, court cases, and very confused pigeons.

The truly Orwellian twist? Nobody knows who’s responsible when it all goes wrong. The AI supplier blames the council. The council blames the police. The police blame the algorithms. Accountability is passed around like a hot potato, until eventually it lands in the “Too Hard” basket.

RECOMMENDATIONS (BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS TO)

• Conduct a full audit of the CCTV budget and outcomes
• Publicly declare the Data Controller and publish GDPR compliance materials
• Establish a proper procurement process
• Enable legal Subject Access Requests
• Refer the entire operation to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

CRIME PARTNERSHIP PANEL: A Masterclass in No-Shows and No-Knowledge

Let’s now cast a spotlight on the Crime Partnership Panel—Oswestry Town Council’s grand attempt at inter-agency cooperation, partnered with West Mercia Police and a rotating cast of public sector extras. Think of it as a crime-fighting supergroup… except the band never rehearses, most members don’t turn up, and the drummer refuses to play in public.

The panel, which sounds terribly important on paper, has become something of a phantom limb in local governance. Its meetings are so rare, and so poorly attended, that one wonders whether they’re scheduled via séance.

The last confirmed meeting? That was 3rd July 2024, conducted via Microsoft Teams (the modern equivalent of shouting into a well). Out of a possible eight councillors, a mighty two graced the event with their presence. The turnout was so thin, even the Town Clerk, a West Mercia Police rep, someone from Oswestry BID, and a Shropshire Council official looked around the virtual room and probably thought, “Should we just order a takeaway and call it off?”

To be clear: attendees were outnumbered two to one by absentees. In most circles, this would prompt a rethink. In Oswestry, it probably triggered a round of congratulatory emails about how short the meeting was.

But the true pièce de résistance came when West Mercia Police dropped a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) onto the Council’s doormat like an unwanted takeaway leaflet—unconsented, uninvited, and unmistakably inflexible.

This MOU, in its infinite wisdom, declared that CCTV operators should no longer enjoy direct radio access to the police. No, no—such efficiency must be punished. From now on, they must ring 999 or 101 like ordinary mortals.

Let’s assess the genius of this new system. A CCTV operator sees a crime in progress—let’s say a bloke hopping garden fences with a crowbar and a grin. Not quite an emergency? Then it’s the 101 hotline. Cue the waiting music, a cheerful automated menu, and—if they’re lucky—an operator in Worcester picking up just in time to ask, “Are they still on the loose?” By now, of course, the suspect is halfway to Bridgnorth and possibly shopping for fence panels.

This is the bureaucratic version of asking firefighters to write a letter before they’re allowed to use the hose.

FINAL WORD

What Oswestry has built isn’t a modern surveillance system – it’s a drama in several acts: starring a shadowy operator, invisible volunteers, and a council fast asleep at the wheel. For nearly £100,000, the town has bought itself a CCTV system with no legal compliance, no prosecutions, and no return on investment.

Smile for the camera – you’re being watched….. Badly.

Since 2019, Oswestry Town Council has lavished nearly £93,000 on a CCTV system that has yet to deliver quantifiable benefits. That’s over £18,000 a year – nearly ten times the CCTV spend of comparable towns like Wem or Ellesmere. For that, you’d expect 24/7 monitoring, detailed performance metrics, and a slick data protection policy. Instead, we’ve got a mystery man, a missing volunteer team, and GDPR compliance that exists only in theory.

Here’s how it breaks down year by year:

• 2019–2020: £16,500
• 2020–2021: £18,200
• 2021–2022: £19,050
• 2022–2023: £22,600
• 2023–2024: £16,500
Total: £92,850 – or as the council helpfully rounds it: ‘about £93,000’.

Meanwhile, most North Shropshire towns manage their entire CCTV operation on between £1,000 and £6,000 a year, often using shared clerks, part-time staff, or good old-fashioned volunteers (assuming those aren’t mythical too).

So, here’s a suggestion: why not move the entire operation into the Guildhall? Install the CCTV desk in the mayor’s parlour, give Stafford a swivel chair, and charge West Mercia Police rent for the privilege of phoning in crime reports three hours after they happen, a kind of Minority Report in reverse.

At least then, we could say Oswestry’s surveillance scheme achieved one thing: revenue generation through creative absurdity.