A THIRSK-BASED company has been praised by the Highlands Council for introducing a new CCTV system to the area.

Vemotion has installed the system to cover the large remote region from Fort William to Wick – a task which Stewart McCone, chief executive, said was a significant undertaking.

"For starters, the geographical covered is huge. It’s 168 miles, or a four hour drive, from Wick in the North to Fort William in the South. Secondly, we had to contend with limited infrastructure in much of the area we were working in.

"While Inverness has a good infrastructure, the Scottish Highlands are one of the remotest areas in Britain and obviously this posed a number of challenges. I’m delighted we were able to meet each of these."

With a state of the art CCTV control centre now operating in Inverness, the challenge was to find a way of providing live coverage of the remote Highlands to this centre. The costs of fibre and radio options were prohibitive, so Vemotion came up with an alternative.

Gary Black, communications manager for the Highland Council, said: "The results have revolutionised the control room. The room is staffed by council employees and they are delighted. Image quality is excellent and we can now view from one central location and co-ordinate the necessary responses throughout the areas we are responsible for.

“I can view the feeds on my office PC and even on my mobile phone. This means that no matter where I am, if someone calls with a problem or a question, I can immediately access the camera in question and take a look, even take direct control, if I need to.”

Vemotion is now turning its attention to a new traffic management scheme being introduced by the Highland Council.