DISAPPOINTED but determined is the mood among campaigners after a council upheld a decision not to reinstate CCTV in a town centre.

More than 1,400 people signed a petition calling for cameras to be reintroduced into Richmond in the wake of the tragic death of Andrew Jackson who was beaten to death in the town in April 2015.

The petition was handed to Richmondshire District Council on June 12, the day before the authority’s corporate board recommended not to redeploy cameras which were decommissioned in 2014 due to high costs. And at a meeting on Tuesday night, councillors endorsed this recommendation, stating the costs involved were not a proportionate response to the levels of crime in the town centre.

However, councillors also agreed to help other organisations and communities with set up costs – estimated to be about £39,500 – if those groups were able to run and monitor the cameras.

It was a disappointing decision for campaigners, with few groups unable to afford the £30,000 annual costs of monitoring the cameras.

Jackie Stubbs, from Hudswell, said: “It is not the outcome we wanted. Ideally, we would like the district council to set up and monitor these cameras to help prevent what happened to Andrew Jackson happening again. Richmond is next to the largest garrison in Europe and I worry about terrorism.

“We will not give up and I’m hopeful we can get something in place not just in Richmond but in the wider area”

Yesterday, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) confirmed it would not cover the cost of monitoring the cameras, but said there was capacity for it to be done in its CCTV suite.

A spokesperson said: “The MOD control room at Catterick Garrison has formerly been used to monitor CCTV cameras in Richmond and the MOD covered the maintenance costs of the control room. It would still be possible to use the cameras in this way. The running costs of monitoring the CCTV cameras in Richmond must be covered by another party.”

Richmond Town Council is also investigating options.

The council led review of CCTV in Richmond began 18 months ago. Crime, antisocial behaviour and outcome statistics were gathered for the Market Place, which showed incidents had decreased from 205 to 43 between 2011 and 2016.

Councillor Ian Threlfall, deputy leader of the council, said: “We have agreed we cannot as a council reinstate these cameras in Richmond but we will look to help communities and business associations wanting to operate a scheme themselves.”