The response to a bomb scare at Glasgow's Buchanan Bus station may have been hampered by a lack of CCTV monitoring, a leading union has warned.
Due to cuts by Glasgow City Council, cameras in the city are only monitored for 12 hours a day, between 3pm and 3am.
The cuts to CCTV monitoring were phased in from September last year, as part of a £50m savings drive by the council.
Though the cameras do still record outwith monitoring hours, they remain in a fixed position where previously they were monitored around the clock from London Road in the city.
This week a bomb scare at Buchanan Bus Station caused travel chaos, with the subway and Queen Street rail station also shut down, the M8 closed at junction 16, and Glasgow Caledonian University evacuated as officers attended.
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A suspicious package was reported shortly after 1pm and a controlled explosion carried out, with the bus station eventually reopening at 9.45pm. Three men arrested in connection with the incident were later released without charge.
Though there was ultimately no risk to the public, the union which represents CCTV monitoring staff has warned the incident shows the dangers of not having round-the-clock cover.
John Slaven, GMB organiser at Glasgow City Council, said: “It should not take a potential disaster to convince the council to reinstate 24-hour cover.
“It might be nice to believe nothing bad can happen in daylight but that doesn’t make it true.
“Emergencies happen between 3am and 3pm too and the city should be ready.
“We will never know if the response on Wednesday would have been quicker, better coordinated and more effective if the cameras had been monitored.
“We do know the potential benefit of experienced staff monitoring cameras around the clock far outweighs any potential saving.”
The warning comes after The Herald previously reported that, of the 439 cameras operated by Glasgow City Council across the city, a quarter are not working.
A Freedom of Information request by GMB to the council broke down by ward where the highest numbers of cameras are out of action.
The union has now written to every city councillor to detail the number of cameras broken in their ward and urged them to support calls for reinstatement of 24-hour cover and systematic repair to the network.
In Baillieston, in the city's East End, more than half of CCTV cameras were not functional.
In Pollokshields, where widespread disturbances took place on Bonfire Night, close to 20% of cameras are not working.
As reported by our sister title, the Glasgow Times, Police Scotland opted not to deploy officers to the scene on November 5 for fear of sparking "a large-scale riot", with inspector Graeme Hogg stating that officers monitored CCTV instead.
Ross McArthur, senior GMB representative at the council, said the people of Glasgow are being given a false sense of security by street cameras which are not working or monitored.
He said: “The CCTV network across Glasgow has been crucial to keeping the city safe but is sliding into dereliction.
“Camera by camera, whether by design or neglect, this essential safeguard for people of Glasgow is being lost.
“Until recently, these cameras were monitored around the clock with our members responding immediately to apparent crimes and accidents.
“That support and informed insight of monitoring staff was invaluable to police, fire and ambulance crews involved in an emergency response.
“We have raised these concerns repeatedly with management but nothing has been done.
“What will it take? What price do councillors put on making our streets safe?”
The areas with the most blackspots line up with the poorest areas of the city in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation figures.
Below are the SIMD figures, with red being most deprived and blue least - hover over the graphic to see them compared with the GMB map.
A Glasgow City Council spokesperson said: "Our public space CCTV system does not provide coverage within Buchanan St Bus Station, where the alleged incident on Wednesday is said to have taken place.
"Cameras in the vicinity of the bus station which we control were used by our traffic team to help relieve traffic congestion in the area at the time of the alleged incident.
"Our CCTV operators provided support for the police working to address disorder in Pollokshields on Bonfire Night.
"Glasgow continues to have the widest prevalence of CCTV cameras of any city in the UK.”
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