Wagga CCTV not quite ready to hit record

Wagga City Council is adamant the infrastructure will be installed and switched on in the CBD as a priority, but a last-minute blip has pressed pause on the project, again, momentarily.

Councillors accepted a Schneider Electric Buildings Australia Pty Ltd proposal to design and construct the CCTV network at the ordinary meeting on Monday night.

The $1,005,623 deal is subject to the successful negotiations of contract liability issues.

Mayor Rod Kendall couldn't go into detail about the issues, given their commercial nature, but said they were put on the table by the company and arose between the preparation of the staff report to this week's sitting of council and the meeting itself.

"Providing that's resolved, we'll go into contract with them," Councillor Kendall said.

The decision to accept the proposal, subject to conditions, was made behind closed-doors and debated for more than an hour.

Cr Kendall said discussion centred around pushing the decision back to a future meeting, but council didn't want to delay the project.

He indicated the issue would be resolved sooner rather than later.

"(The resolution) shows council's keenness to get on with the job," he said.

When asked by The Daily Advertiser when construction would start on the project and cameras switched on, Cr Kendall said that wasn't yet known.

"The moment that (liability) issue has been resolved, we'll let you know," he said.

Staunch campaigner for CCTV and Committee 4 Wagga chief executive Chris Fitzpatrick preferred not to make in-depth comment until the contract was awarded.

"We're just hopeful the issues can be resolved quickly, so we can get on with it," Mr Fitzpatrick said.

Council also decided to create a reserve to fund the ongoing maintenance and renewal of the CCTV network on Monday night.

The reserve will be funded from savings from the design and construction of the project and an annual reallocation of $10,000 from the information services hardware purchase budget.