Thousands of council CCTV cameras “out of action” due to technical faults

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that, in 2025, local councils reported over 11,000 faults, equating to around one in every four council CCTV cameras not working at some point in the year due to technical errors. Experts are now calling for more support for councils to resolve the issues and find ways in which to reduce fault times across CCTV networks.

The TrellisWorks study finds that most CCTV failures across the country are due to technology issues rather than damage with 2,766 faults already reported in the first two months of 2026.

From lost connection through to poor configuration or blurred images, at least 10,938 faults were logged in 2025 due to technical issues, with subsequent fixes taking anywhere from a few hours up to nine months.

Some councils were unable to confirm the cause of faults due to how the data is held. However, of the 124 that did, all of them cited connectivity or camera errors as the biggest area of concern.

Worrying trend

Nick Metcalfe, wireless specialist for CCTV at Newbury-based TrellisWorks, is surprised the data shows a worrying trend across council networks.

Metcalfe stated: “There are lots of reasons why faults can occur on a network, and it’s important to remember that some downtime is inevitable as cameras can be taken offline due to ongoing works or maintenance.”

He continued: “However, the data shows that there are councils across the country running with heavily fault-led systems. This could be due to budget constraints or current configurations, but many could be rebooting cameras to fix the problem for it only to reoccur.”

Further, Metcalfe observed: “Many councils will add to and change the CCTV network over time as demand alters and can often grow their network quite substantially over an extended period of time. This leaves the network vulnerable to errors where it isn’t always configured as a whole or is otherwise left with repeated connection errors.”

Ultimately, Metcalfe wants more to be done to help councils explore in detail the ways in which errors can be corrected.

Study figures

Under the Freedom of Information Act, which affords requested access to recorded information held by England’s public authorities, TrellisWorks asked all 317 councils how many faults had been recorded on their CCTV systems and what were the most frequent causes.

In total, 233 of England’s councils replied with 108 citing they did not hold the information or, for security reasons, couldn’t divulge details. Of all the councils that did confirm details about faults, they reported having 46,107 cameras in total. Numbers of cameras affected could be higher as figures relate to the number of faults logged rather than the number of cameras. This means some faults could refer to more than one camera. Repeated faults could also refer to multiple errors for the same camera.

Only 93 out of all 22,828 faults reported since 2024 could be confirmed as due to vandalism or storm damage, in turn placing camera faults and connectivity as the highest cause for concern.

One council reported that 19 of its 24 communal building cameras were currently faulty, while another highlighted the fact that 75% of errors were due to outdated equipment.

TrellisWorks is now looking to raise awareness of the simple ways in which councils can cut down the faults and keep their CCTV up to speed.

*Further information is available online at www.trellisworks.co.uk/cctvguide