A CLOSED circuit security camera system for Devizes, Marlborough, Pewsey, Tidworth and Ludgershall could cost £700,000 to set up and up to £170,000 a year to run.

That was the conclusion of a feasibility study considered by Kennet Community Safety Partnership last week.

The report, commissioned from specialist consultants Optimum Risk Management, envisages a central control room, probably in Devizes, manned around the clock, seven days a week, to monitor activities in the centres of all five towns and villages.

But Optimum's suggestion that crime figures only justify CCTV being introduced in Marlborough and Devizes, leaving Pewsey, Tidworth and Ludgershall out of the equation, was rejected by last week's meeting of the partnership.

Members decided to set up a working party, under the chairmanship of Marlborough head teacher Dr Patrick Hazlewood, to look at the costs of installing the pan, tilt and zoom colour cameras and how the system would be financed.

The Marlborough system could consist of ten pole-mounted cameras. They would be positioned in The Parade, London Road, two in the High Street and one in each of the town centre car parks.

A possible system for Pewsey would incorporate six cameras, one in the North Street car park, one in the Market Place car park, two in High Street and two in the Pioneer supermarket car park.

Devizes could be in line to get seven cameras.

Marlborough undertaker David Hunter, of Thomas Free and Son, in The Parade, said he would welcome CCTV to deter vandals who plague the street at weekends.

Mr Hunter said he believed that while there were no crime levels to justify the cost of installing security cameras in the town, it would be worth having them as an anti-vandalism measure.

The undertaker said: "We do not have a problem with crime but sadly anti-social behaviour is prevalent here on Friday and Saturday nights."

Hairdresser Caroline Clarkson-Cowles, who runs Carries in New Road, said she could see the advantages of CCTV but feared it would drive the problem of anti-social behaviour to areas not covered by cameras.