Denbighshire’s CCTV service and public realm departments have come up with an innovative way of stopping people from going into the Drift Park’s water play area out of hours by attaching a voice module to the nearby CCTV camera.
The move was prompted following numerous occasions where people have been entering the area out of hours, which could have serious health and safety implications.
The facility has to be manned when open to ensure that people are safe. The staff are required to check the facility for any hazards, to ensure that no small children wander in and get into difficulty if they can’t swim, as well as constantly monitoring the water quality.
Ian Olson, Denbighshire’s Coastal Facilities officer, explained: “If people are in the facility out of hours we cannot guarantee their safety and it causes a number of issues for us and results in council officers and the police having to attend to ask these people to leave the facility.
“Through working with CCTV staff, we have now installed a voice module on the CCTV camera there. This voice box is operated by CCTV Control Room staff and can be triggered when they see people in the facility out of hours.”
The bilingual pre-recorded message warns people that they should leave the facility immediately for their own safety, or the police will be called.
This is the first time this type of unit has been installed in Denbighshire and will help to reduce the number of callouts to the council and the police.
