Council to chargefor camera footage

A YORKSHIRE council has decided it will start charging for CCTV camera footage.

Bosses at Doncaster Council said despite requests falling, they are changing the policy of providing free footage due to it “being of no benefit” to the authority.

The officer-made decision to charge will include a £50 search fee just to view the footage and further payments at £50 per camera to supply footage.

Doncaster Council operates a number of CCTV cameras across the borough and these are used to view and monitor activity in public spaces. They are on buildings, in pedestrianised areas and on highways, but the council does not publicly disclose where they are.

Insurance companies or legal representatives often approach the authority to request CCTV footage of road traffic incidents in order to determine liability in legal proceedings.

In 2018/19, 149 requests were received, and in 2019/20, there were 188 requests.

This fell in 2020/21 where 94 were received and to date during this financial year, the council has received 64.

Bosses said the Covid-19 lockdowns “drastically reduced the traffic on the roads” over this and last financial year and not all of these requests result in footage being sent as the incident may not have been captured, the footage is not clear or the incident occurred more than 30 days ago.

Council officer Sarah Marshall said: “The processing of these requests is time consuming and provides no benefit to the council. Many requests are for footage of very minor incidents which we feel could be resolved without the CCTV images.

“A benchmarking exercise has taken place with other local authorities who charge for the release of the footage, and charges range from £10 up to £210. The suggested charges are based on the time council staff spend on dealing with requests.”