Lib Dem/Tory-run Southwark Council will spend £24,000 removing talking CCTV cameras under eighteen months after they were installed, having never been switched on. The cameras, which were designed to offer residents a direct line to a camera operative in an emergency, cost £61,000 to install, bringing the total cost of the pointless blunder to an eye-watering £85,000.

Lib Dem Community Safety Executive Members had made repeated promises to get the cameras online since their originally planned switch-on date in April 2008, but the ‘emergency help points’ are now rusting having never been brought into use.

The spending comes in the same year as massive cuts to youth provision and community safety, as well as huge price hikes on council services from housing to childcare.

Southwark Labour’s community safety spokesman Cllr John Friary said:

“After spending £50,000 on just fifty bikes for community wardens, wasting £85,000 on talking CCTV which has never even been turned on is another indictment of the Lib Dem’s crime fighting priorities. The Lib Dems were quick to press release these new cameras, but not so quick to get them working or make the real changes to make the community safer.

“The Lib Dem/Tory executive has basically paid contractors to dig a hole in the ground and fill it in again. These cameras could have made a real difference to a resident in an emergency. It’s outrageous that they were never turned on, but bordering on the farcical that they’ve cost the council tax payer tens of thousands of pounds.”