New portable CCTV cameras are to be bought which council officers will be able to train on hotspots of crime away from the city centre.

Eastern Daily Press: Simon Crawford, from the Russell Street Community Area Residents Association. Pic: Jamie HoneywoodSimon Crawford, from the Russell Street Community Area Residents Association. Pic: Jamie Honeywood (Image: Jamie HoneywoodArchantNorwichNorfolk)

Norwich City Council is to buy the four redeployable cameras, which will be added to three portable ones which City Hall and the police already use.

The announcement that the city council intends to buy the extra equipment came at a meeting of the full city council, where community representatives asked for cameras to tackle drug-related crime and anti-social behaviour.

Simon Crawford, from the Russell Street Community Area Residents Association, told councillors that CCTV further afield than the city centre was needed to deal with anti-social behaviour, general crime and County Lines drug dealing.

He said: 'It is a fact that the drug crime and associated anti-social behaviour has been pushed out into the suburbs and into residential areas such as ours.

'My fellow committee members and additional residents in the area, while being involved in our by-monthly litter picks have seen first-hand open drug-dealing, bags of human excrement, used condoms, business waste dumped under low lying ground cover, increased fly-tipping and general mess and detritus that go with the less than desirable side of life in the community.'

Calling for cameras to be extended beyond the city centre, he said: 'Surely the good and tax-paying people of Norwich have the right to feel protected from the less than decent members of the society who reside among us on a daily basis.'

Kevin Maguire, the city council's cabinet member for safe city environment, said, as part of the budget for the coming year, the council would be spending about £20,000 on new portable CCTV cameras for public spaces and tower blocks - on top of the investment of more than £500,000 on the CCTV which covers the city centre.

He said those cameras would be placed in areas where significant problems were identified and that it was possible that the Russell Street area could be considered.

He said: 'It's important that people report all incidents to police or to the council so when the cameras become available, they can be placed in the most problematic locations.'

He said the cameras were part of a new £50,000 community safety initiative.