Oxfordshire's town-centre CCTV is now watched from one control room at Abingdon Police Station. Thames Valley Police owns the Vale's cameras and runs the hub.
A new control room at Abingdon Police Station now monitors public space CCTV across Oxfordshire. It opened last Friday, 2 October.
Vale of White Horse District Council announced the launch on 6 October. The hub belongs to the Thames Valley CCTV Partnership. Oxfordshire’s district councils, the Vale among them, have handed their public space cameras to Thames Valley Police. The Police and Crime Commissioner is investing in the system, and the councils keep paying towards it.
What has changed
Until now the Vale ran its own CCTV. It owned the cameras in Abingdon and Wantage, employed the operators and shared a control room with South Oxfordshire. That room was already inside Abingdon Police Station.
A Cabinet report of June 2024 set out the old arrangement. Most of the time one operator worked alone. On busy Friday and Saturday nights two were on duty. Between them they watched all 87 cameras linked to that room. When nobody was watching a camera, it kept recording.
Oxfordshire had four control rooms. The other three were in police stations in Oxford, Cherwell and West Oxfordshire. The plan merges all four into the Abingdon room. It would monitor all 285 public space CCTV cameras in the county, with one supervisor and eight operators working shifts.
Under the deal:
- Thames Valley Police owns and maintains the cameras and employs the staff.
- The Vale still pays for the electricity and the fibre lines, and for the columns the cameras are mounted on.
- Replacing worn-out cameras is now a police cost, not a council one.
- Any council can ask for more cameras, but it pays for them. A board chaired by the Police and Crime Commissioner decides, based on local feedback and crime figures.
- The Vale’s operators were to move to Thames Valley Police on their existing terms, under employment transfer rules.
Cabinet agreed the approach on 28 June 2024. The minutes record that town and parish councils had been told and raised no concerns.
What it costs
In 2024/25, running its own control room was budgeted to cost the Vale £52,286 net. That was after £32,000 from town councils and £23,500 from Thames Valley Police. The biggest single cost was £58,516 in staff salaries.
The council’s forecast for the hub ran like this:
The commissioner paid the councils’ share in 2024/25 and part of it in 2025/26. From 2026/27 the Vale pays a full contribution to the hub, forecast at £45,082. Electricity and fibre add about £43,000 more.
The town councils pay a third of the Vale’s costs, forecast at £29,368 for 2026/27. Cabinet minutes say members expected those voluntary payments to continue.
The Vale’s share of the partnership’s running costs is set by a formula. Half is based on its share of cameras, which is 6% across the partnership. The other half follows the community safety funding formula, built on crime and population, where the Vale’s share is 11%.
These figures are the council’s 2024 forecasts. It has not published what the final agreement costs.
What the council says
Councillor Helen Pighills is the Vale’s cabinet member for communities. She attended the launch.
“Having negotiated the best deal for our area, the new hub will now bring us many benefits, building on our previous investments,” she said. She said residents would get “guaranteed continuity of coverage”, plus “upgraded technology and enhanced monitoring”.
What it means for you
- Coverage continues. The council says the handover brings “guaranteed continuity of coverage” for the Abingdon and Wantage cameras, now owned by the police and watched from a larger room.
- More operators should mean fewer unwatched hours. The old room was often staffed by one person watching 87 cameras. The hub was planned with eight operators covering about three times as many.
- If you want CCTV somewhere new, ask your town council or district councillor. The council has to make the case to the partnership board and pay for the cameras.
- To report a crime, call 999 in an emergency or 101 otherwise. The cameras do not replace a report.
Our council tax bands page shows what the Vale and the town councils charge.
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