The Douglas Shire Council has installed new mobile CCTV cameras and increased street lighting at key locations around the region.

The new equipment includes four new portable cameras, requiring concrete footings, and two mobile trailer-based cameras to help detect anti-social behaviour as well as illegal dumping and camping.

While solar-powered street lighting has been added to parts of Wharf Street to better illuminate the space with further “black spot” areas currently being surveyed by Council.

The Douglas Local Disaster Management Group and Police are currently using one of the cameras to monitor movements in and out of some of our vulnerable communities during the current COVID-19 pandemic to ensure people are adhering to restrictions. 

The new infrastructure is part of an ongoing $400,000 project to ensure public safety funded through the Australian Government’s Safer Communities Funding which also included the CCTV cameras and security lights installed throughout Mossman in December 2019.

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Douglas Shire Council Manager of Environment and Planning and Local Disaster Coordinator, Paul Hoye, is confident the new cameras will improve safety in the community.

“With such a large Shire it can be difficult to monitor all known hot spots,” he said.

“The new portable cameras have been placed in areas where recent anti-social activity has occurred or illegal dumping has been reported.

“The Police are also using the cameras to keep vulnerable residents of the Mossman Gorge community safe during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

“Triggered by a motion sensor, the cameras can detect movement causing the floodlights to turn on and the camera to start recording,” he said.

Queensland Police will have access to the cameras should they need to monitor activity at any of the sites.

The cameras can record activity for up to 30 days.