Mayor Agustin Navarro at the control centre

Benidorm City Council have installed 4 new "traffic" cameras in the Rincon de Loix and yesterday the Mayor Agustin Navarro and several Councillors visited the operations room from where they are controlled - officially switching them on.  The new cameras are all located in the area predominantly frequented by the British and bring the total number of cameras in the town to 50.

The cameras are mounted high up on lamp posts outside Tiki City, Broadway, Red Lion and the Hotel Presidente - an area often targeted by the so called pea men, pick pockets and "ladies offering their services". Business owners have for years been petitioning the Council to act and things came to a head in May when a shop worker was badly beaten up after trying to warn a British couple who were about to be targeted by a pickpocket on the Avd Filipinas.

New camera opposite the Hotel Presidente

The 4 cameras cost 22,000 euros and been paid for by the local businesses in the area, including a well known hotel chain  - by which I am guessing the Hotel Presidente as one of the cameras are opposite! The Avd Filipinas is the busy road which starts at the Avd Mediterraneo and leads down to the outdoor market and always full of people, particularly on a Wednesday and Sunday.

The control centre works continuously for 24 hours a day, 365 days per year and is operated by 12 local police, 2 officers, 1 inspector and 3 technicians of the monitoring company. They have direct contact with the police out on patrol, with neighbouring towns and also have access to databases of the National Police and can even control and over ride the traffic lights across the town.

In his speech the Mayor said that the presence of these cameras should reduce the temptation to commit criminal activity and the target is to have the entire town covered by cameras, stating that another camera will be installed by the indoor market. Images are automatically stored for 5 days and the cameras can zoom in on faces and car registration numbers, which in turn is linked to traffico and can identify the details of the registered owner.

It has been a long time coming but thankfully now the streets should feel that bit safer - as the famous phrase on Hill Street Blues went "Let´s be careful out there"... I´m really showing my age now!  The next step now is to push through the new by-laws on the pea men, classifying it as a criminal activity.