Invercargill CCTV upgrade due to phase in December-March

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Improved CCTV coverage of inner-city Invercargill is scheduled to be commissioned in stages between December and February, with South City and Bluff to follow in February and March.

That is the timeline put to city councillors on Tuesday, after they gave the project a hurry-up message late last month, citing community impatience.

Infrastructure manager Erin Moogan said the project team was aware of the urgency “but it is important that the network design is robust and a fair process for procurement is established’’.

In response to approaches from police, retailers, Invercargill Central Ltd, Community Watch, Māori wardens and the council has increased an initial $250,000 upgrade to $450,000 for the coming year, and noted the remainder of the $1 million sought for an estimated total 133 cameras could be included in its long-term plan.

The network design under way at present involves building the data network of fibre and wireless solutions for the onsite cameras to link into a storage device.

It helped that much of the council’s own cabling could be accessed, but the project had high demands for information technology, requiring specific radio and switching gear to be bought.

Other councils were undertaking similar projects, putting pressure on the wider industry and supply lines, Moogan said.

“There is wide interest, but most product is sourced from overseas and is subject to sleeping and delivery issues.

Extra skill training for both council and contractor staff may also be needed.

Alongside progressing the network design, the council was preparing to go to public tender to use external expertise to select a limited number of potential vendors , who would then provide more information, pricing and a demonstration of their products and capabilities.

The vendor would also be asked to offer a range of local suppliers with whom they would work.

“Locally the technical expertise and IT availability will be an ongoing challenge, to be able to receive, set up and make the councillors.

Cr Grant Dermody asked how much involvement the police had had in the planning process and Cr Lesley Soper, who was involved in the project team, said they had been consulted throughout, as had other groups.

“They were all very much on the same page about the progress, what we wanted to see happening, and the order,’’ she said.

Mana whenua representative Evelyn Cook said the prioritisation process should not lose sight of the fact that one of the triggering events for the upgrade was the violent death of a young person in Don St in April 2022, for which a murder trial is scheduled next year.

“I don’t want it ever to be forgotten that a young person died on Don St and we … as a city … did not have good resources to help identify who did that as quickly as we could have because our CCTV was not up to scratch,’’ she said.