PLANS to boost staff manning York's CCTV system are to be debated tonight.

The opposition Labour group wants an extra person to man the city's camera system on weekend evenings.

Labour councillors will propose their plans at a full council budget meeting tonight.

Group leader Dave Merrett said: "The recent poor state of some of the city's CCTV system has been a cause of great public concern, and we want to see more investment to modernise and update the system.

"We will be proposing funding an extra member of staff to monitor the CCTV on weekend evenings, as the system only works if have enough staff in place to make the best use of the system and information."

Coun Merrett said the group would also be proposing investing more cash to fight crime in York, saying opposition councillors were "stunned" at proposed budget cuts to the Safer York Partnership. They also want to see an extra Urbie bus to help youth workers tackle low-level anti-social behaviour in the city.

Coun Merrett said: "The Urbie bus is a specially- designed minibus staffed by youth workers. It goes out into the community that particularly appeal to young people.

"The one bus we have now does excellent work in reducing anti-social behaviour by giving young people positive things to do.

"These two actions should particularly assist the police in tackling drink-related crime and violence in the city centre."

Last month, the Evening Press revealed the shocking state of York's security cameras, with 11 branded as "good as useless".

But council leader Steve Galloway said manning CCTV cameras with an extra member of staff would not be an effective way of boosting security.

"Having extra people in the control room seems a very strange priority to me," he said.

"We monitor CCTV cameras 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Having an extra body in the control room would not be much good.

"If we had any additional funding available, we'd be spending it on modernising the equipment - which is ten years old in some cases."

He said the ruling Liberal Democrats were pledging an extra £50,000 to fighting crime - which could be spent on a new Urbie bus.

Updated: 10:22 Tuesday, February 22, 2005