BT wins Calderdale Council contract

14 Sep 08

By Anthony Hildebrand

BT has won the competitive tender to upgrade the community safety CCTV and communications infrastructure for Calderdale Council.

The contract involves consolidating pre-existing CCTV systems from seven towns in the Calderdale Council area into a single new digital CCTV transmission network, and the construction of a new central control and monitoring centre.

The £500,000 project also involves the convergence of the council’s telephone and IT systems within the newly created data centre.

Nick Stevenson, project manager, Community Support, Calderdale Council, said: “BT offered the best value for money. Theirs was the only tender that included a detailed, fully thought-through plan for how we could converge all of our systems and develop them for the future.

“Calderdale Council wanted to bring all of our communications – voice, data, CCTV image data, radio, wireless IP and so on – together over the same single new digital network. BT are the ideal partner to help us achieve this.”

Integrated data strategy
Joe Fielder, sales and marketing director at BT Security Solutions said: “Calderdale’s vision to develop an integrated data communications strategy means that we have been able help them to realise significant improvements in overall system operation and maintenance costs.

“We are delighted that – in awarding BT the contract – Calderdale has recognised the depth of experience BT can bring, particularly in delivering cost effective, secure and highly resilient converged CCTV, voice and data communications solutions.”

The new project will facilitate Calderdale Council’s community safety CCTV strategy, which includes a plan to develop a common communications infrastructure with the members of the local Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership.

Safer corridors
Peter Woodhouse, QPM, is CCTV manager at Calderdale Council. He said: “The strategy is to make all districts safer for residents, visitors and business in the community. We’re trying to create ‘safe corridors’ covering all types of public places where people may be at risk – car parks, taxi ranks, hospitals, supermarkets, railway stations, housing estates and town centre shopping arcades.

“Many of these places already have CCTV cameras. The new points of presence that the BT transmission network will give us means we will be able to begin to bring the private sector on board.”

Procurement for the complex project was undertaken through the OGC – the Office of Government Commerce – using its ‘Convergent Solutions’ framework. It is the first time that a council CCTV project has been procured under this OGC framework. The project will be primarily funded by Calderdale Council, with an additional contribution by West Yorkshire Police.

The seven towns involved in the new CCTV project are Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Todmorden, Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge, Elland and Halifax.