240 cameras, 24 hours a day 365 days a year - behind the scenes at York's CCTV hub

The city currently has about 240 cameras covering the city centre, the Park & Ride sites, and a number of schools, with two CCTV operators monitoring the hub 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

James Watson is the CCTV manager for Gough & Kelly, who operate the cameras for the council, and told The Press he had already seen positive changes with the scheme in recent years, and North Yorkshire Police generally made between 40 and 80 requests for footage each month - but it was difficult to highlight any victory over another.

He said: "We have pursuits through the city which often come to an end due to CCTV being able to coordinate with police and being able to get them in the right places at the right time.

"It's a privilege to join meetings with police, licensing authorities, York BID and all those people who are making changes that will affect peoples' lives in the city - from picking up rubbish and clearing streets - and to single out one incident as 'amazing' just falls into the list of things that happen here day to day."

Recorded footage is retained for 31 days before it is automatically overwritten, and the cameras are far more technologically advanced than ever before - James said the change was "the difference between having a VHS and a 4K Blu-Ray", as cameras can now see up to 100 metres down the street.

Tony Clarke is the council's head of transport and provides a different view on the use of cameras, which he said were coming in particularly handy as roadworks cause traffic congestion around Walmgate Bar.

He said: "We can remotely control the signals but need to see the impact of those works. They are linked to urban traffic control system, and we can change the timings so if there's a particular build-up of traffic, we can adjust that to make sure it better balances the traffic. Similarly, when there's a platoon of traffic coming down the road, we are trying to respond to that to keep things moving."

Although changes have already been made to the CCTV cameras in recent years, more are set to take place, with further improvements expected as the city's anti-terror measures increase in coming months.

Mr Clarke said proposed gates or rising bollards in the centre, to prevent vehicular attacks on pedestrians, would involve some form of CCTV connection - a measure improved as York became the UK's first 'Gigabyte City', which he said "made everything a lot easier".

He said: "There's a programme to invest in anti-terrorism measures in the city centre, so we're looking at areas with the highest footfall - Parliament Street and Coney Street - and security measures around that area.

"As part of that process, we will have to provide access to people like the emergency services to allow those people to get into the city centre, and there will be a CCTV element to that. In effect, we need a gate, and it's about managing that gate.

"There will also be some enhancement of cameras which are already there, new cameras in Hungate, and we will review the outer ring road roundabouts. We're looking at cameras at each of the roundabout locations."