TEIGNMOUTH CCTV is to be put on hold because the monitoring station is at capacity. Phase one of the scheme in Northumberland Place is in position, but will not go live until the Newton Abbot-based monitoring room has been expanded. Town clerk Dave Tickell told Tuesday's Teignmouth Town Council finance and general purposes meeting that there are 32 monitors covering Newton Abbot, Bovey Tracey and Chudleigh. The centre could potentially cover 140 monitors in time but Mr Tickell expressed concern about staff being overstretched. 'They have no room to monitor what we have and the difficulty is that we are not in a position to start up a monitoring post ourselves.' The news came amid reports of vandalism at the weekend. Windows, glass in a bus shelter and half-inch thick panes at a viewing point had been smashed, said committee chairman Cllr Fred Tooley. Cllr Vince Fusco said there had been concern about youngsters playing on top of the railway wall near Myrtle Hill. 'This can't be allowed to go on, it really can't,' he said. Cllr Tooley said: 'We seem to be going backwards. If CCTV was in place this weekend, we could identify who had done it,' he said. The council agreed to ask that monitoring positions were made available for Teignmouth as soon as possible and that the monitors should be broken up into smaller areas. Cllr Roy Phillips called for a 're-appraisal'. He said: 'How this is managed needs to be looked at again. 'This has been going on for 12 years and it keeps coming up.'
