A £2.3million upgrade of CCTV cameras in Barnet is well underway as part of a range of safety initiatives led by the council.

Since an overhaul of the system was approved last year, the council has fixed and upgraded 107 cameras and rolled out 20 new mobile cameras.

It comes after a review showed 70% of cameras had been defective since 2017, with issues going unreported until 2021.

A further 20 cameras are expected to come online in December after undergoing maintenance. By 2024, the council aims to have 500 fixed cameras across the borough – up from the current 127 – and a new control room in Colindale to replace the current Enfield-based facility.

The update was presented to a meeting of the community leadership and libraries committee on Monday. Clair Green, the council’s executive director of assurance, told the meeting the maintenance programme had been “really successful”, and the appointment of a new contractor had “significantly improved” monitoring of the network.

Clair added that monitoring is now taking place 24 hours a day and is “proactive as well as reactive”.

Last week, the council announced it had opened the first of its community safety hubs to allow residents to anonymously report or raise concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour. The first of the hubs, in Edgware and West Hendon, will be open weekly.

In November, the council will hold the first of its ‘ward walks’ in which councillors, council officers and police will visit local neighbourhoods to investigate reported anti-social behaviour issues.

Earlier this year, the local authority announced it would triple the number of officers in its community safety team to enable them to patrol every ward in the borough. The shake-up came in response to a “general increase in crimes such as fly-tipping, anti-social behaviour, burglary and acts of violence, as well as hate crimes,” according to a report.