PC Emma CooperMalmesbury is to get its long awaited CCTV cameras after a working party agreed to give the project the go-ahead.

Malmesbury police officer PC Emma Cooper welcomed the move and said the cameras could help rid the town's streets of yobs and louts.

Incidents of anti-social behaviour are rare in Malmesburt but when they do occur, it's usually between 8pm and 1pm on Fridays and Saturdays, according to PC Cooper.

And she believes CCTV would identify troublemakers streaming out from the local pubs.

She said: "I think Malmesbury would benefit from CCTV. It is not just about cutting crime but also about making people feel secure. We can use the cameras to identify someone and it means we will be able to stop people causing criminal damage.'

She added that yobs and hooligans are normally not a serious problem in the town, but on the odd occasion that they were, CCTV would be an invaluable tool for the police.

PC Cooper said police could have arrested more people in the town had there been cameras, after a fracas in the Market Cross involving 70 people last February.

Her comments came as a working group of town councillors and community representatives met last Thursday night in the town hall to discuss the viability of implementing CCTV cameras in Malmesbury.

It is hoped the scheme, which will cost more than £30,000, could be funded by the district and county councils.

The group agreed to divide Malmesbury into zones where up to 11 cameras could be installed.

These zones would include the High Street, Market Cross and Abbey Row as well as the Cross Hayes car park, Station Yard car park and Cloister Gardens.

Coun Martin Snell stressed that it was too early to say when cameras would be installed because the group was checking out the costs and specifications required.

He said: "We are looking at several companies and we need to find out what we need in each zone. We are going for a full system of 11 cameras to get an idea of the costs and specifications."

However, the plan is being hampered by the lack of any building suitable to house a CCTV monitoring room. Coun Snell said the obvious location would be the town hall, but the uncertainty over its future had left the working group in a quandary.

Coun Snell said: "The problem is that we don't know the future of the town hall. It would help us a lot if we could put the screens in the town hall. Our hands are tied because we don't know where to monitor it. We have got to determine somewhere in the town centre."

Two types of CCTV technology are being considered by the working group. These are either wireless Broadband technology or installing cables.

Broadband is thought to be the best option since it offers better quality pictures as it does not involve digging up the streets.

Last month representatives from the group visited a CCTV control room in Devizes, which monitors Salisbury and Amesbury as part of a fact-finding mission.