Olhão, Portimão and Faro are to have CCTV cameras installed to monitor and record activity in their main trouble spots, with a live feed to local police stations.Olhão’s mayor, António Pina, commented, "We will tender for the acquisition of the system next month," with local ratepayers picking up the €65,000 cost for 24 cameras spying on Avenida 5 de Outubro, Avenida da República and in the main pedestrian and shopping street, Rua do Comércio.
It is not made clear if this budget includes monitoring screens in the local police station on Avenida 5 de Outubro or for police time spent looking at them.
Portimão council has not yet decided where its cameras will be installed and how many there will be. The council aims to conduct a survey to find the optimum coverage.
Mayor Isilda Gomes said the priority is video surveillance in Praia da Rocha, adding that in the future coverage may be extended to other areas of the city. The mayor expects that "everything will be ready by the end of the year.”
Faro council is to reopen an old video surveillance project that was to cover the downtown nightlife zone. The original plan was shelved due to data protection law issues.
Olhão also is to have a Municipal Police Force. A draft regulation for the creation and operation of a municipal police presence was published in Diário da República, following a 30-day public consultation.
"The creation of the Municipal Police Force results from the need for more control in the public areas and aims also to contribute to raising the levels of security for the population," said mayor Pina, adding that around eight agents will be employed, rising to 12 in the future, but not adding that these operatives will be expected to raise the equivalent of their own salary in fines for infringements from traders, restaurateurs, shopkeepers and parking violations in a city that lacks car parking space.
This Municipal Police Force in Olhão also may herald the end of those helpful chaps that wave you into car parking spaces along Avenida 5 Octubro, but these anyway may be facing early retirement when the avenue is turned into a one-way system designed to back up traffic as far as the EN125 - thus adding to the long lines of stationary vehicles enjoying summertime on the Algarve's arterial route that runs through the city.
