THE team that runs the town's CCTV operations room is to expand.
Councillors queued up to applaud Big Brother's guardian role and to hear about how they could improve the surveillance scheme.
Councillor Wesley Fitzgerald said at the highways committee meeting: "It is a new way to detect crime and it's working, the evidence is there.
"The police said in the first 18 months 700 incidents were observed through the CCTV which has resulted in nearly 200 arrests.
"We see regularly in the Macclesfield Express that CCTV is picking-up on wrong doing by the citizens."
Technical Services Manager Steve Randall said as the CCTV network expanded - by September Knutsford is likely to also have its own system - the benefits were obvious for all to see.
He said: "It addresses anti-social behaviour, which is sometimes violent.
"CCTV helps in the battle against crime. It's amazing how many times we are able to direct police towards criminals in town.
"It also adds to people's comfort because they know it is operating."
The CCTV has been developed in the main town centres from a simple car park surveillance network in 1998 to what it is today.
Steve Randall said they also worked with the police, who could use the CCTV from their Wilmslow station.
He added that the police had not got the resources monitor them all the time.
Mr Randall said the Control Room was run by three people, but by September there would be five.
Councillors agreed to the CCTV's review, to take on the extra staff, and they also asked for statistics about arrests linked to the equipment to be made available to them at future meetings.
