Flagship CCTV program out of the mall

Safe City monitoring facility to be relocated.

IPSWICH'S Safe City monitoring facility will be relocated as part of the CBD redevelopment.

Community Safety spokesperson Councillor Sheila Ireland said the relocation to the council's building at 143 Brisbane St would be carried out by the end of the year.

Work had started with a completion date of December 31 forecast.

There will be a rolling transition of transferring cameras on to servers in the new building while keeping the Safe City camera network operational.

This will involve taking 20 cameras offline at a time for a period of two hours, outside of peak time, until all 300 have been set up in the new facility.

Safe City is expected to stay at this state-of-the-art facility for at least the next 10 years.

"The growth of the Safe City camera network in 1994 from 11 cameras in the CBD, to more than 300 cameras in over 12 suburbs at the current time, has had an enormous impact on public safety, crime prevention and addressing the perception of crime within the Ipswich community," Cr Ireland said.

"The Safe City branch has grown to include a number of services beyond CCTV.

"The Safe City Monitoring Facility was originally located within the Ipswich City Square administration area, then later co-located with the Police Beat in the mall.

"The current location is a secluded area with mall access, where Safe City has operated for the past 12 years.

"As part of the demolition and redevelopment in the CBD, Safe City must relocate to new premises."

Working co-operatively with police, the CCTV network has helped pick up about 500 incidents a week.