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A central London council has made the controversial decision to switch off its entire network of CCTV cameras.

Conservative-run Westminster City Council agreed the move at a cabinet meeting on Monday evening as part of an effort to cut costs.

It means all the local authority’s 75 cameras will be turned off on September 1 to save up to £1 million a year.

Some of the busiest areas of central London fall under Westminster Council control, including Soho, which has a huge night-time economy.

Opposition leaders and policing experts have previously criticised the proposals.

Terror and policing expert David Videcette told the Standard earlier this month: "It will be a huge, huge loss to police.

"All council CCTV networks are a massive resource to police, have a massive impact on bringing down anti-social behaviour, crime, drug dealing, they are very, very valuable to police.

"It's crazy - the money the council will spend on putting things right, vandalism, theft from local authority premises, it will pay for itself twice over.

"And there's a risk if there was a terrorist attack and we had to track a terrorist's movements.”

But tonight Westminster’s cabinet member for public protection Cllr Nickie Aitken said it could no longer afford to pay for the service which is “non-statutory”, meaning it is not legally required, when it was the Metropolitan Police who mainly made use of the cameras.

She said: “Like many other local authorities around the country, our current view is that we are not able to continue to subsidise this non statutory service when there are many other pressures on our budgets and where other partners are the main beneficiaries.

“We will keep talking and in the past week have had very constructive discussions with the Mayor, the Metropolitan Police and Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

“We want to work towards a pan London solution that is right for the capital as criminals don’t stop at borough borders.”

CCTV cameras in the area run by Transport for London, private businesses and on housing estates will continue to operate.