Police hi-tech car scanning system gets £15m boost

A hi-tech vehicle number plate scanning system that has seen police arrest rates soar and millions of pounds worth of stolen goods recovered is to receive a £15 million boost, Home Secretary David Blunkett announced today.

More than 13,000 arrests have been made by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) teams - an arrest rate nine times higher than the police national average - and £8 million worth of drugs and property seized during a year-long pilot of ANPR technology in 23 police forces.

ANPR instantly scans vehicle number plates and matches them against information stored against police databases to identify stolen vehicles or those involved in crime. Once identified by the system, suspicious vehicles are intercepted by the police and their drivers questioned.

The scheme has been piloted in 23 areas and results published today "show its overwhelming success".

The £15 million cash boost will help expand the scheme to other police forces. It will also fund the creation of a national data centre to exchange ANPR-read data from across the UK for post-incident investigation and to support work to tackle terrorism and organised crime.

Mr Blunkett said: "ANPR is a powerful tool, unique in its ability to impact on crime at every level, from local volume crime through cross-border and organised crime and counter terrorism. It brings enormous benefits to the police and to society.

Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom, ACPO lead on roads policing, said: "I am absolutely delighted that the government has decided to invest such a significant sum of money in the development of ANPR. We in the police can be relied upon to use it for the purpose for which it is intended - to deny criminals the use of the roads."

Since June 2003, forces have been able to recycle revenue from fixed penalties detected by ANPR technology to part-finance the expansion of the system, meaning that those who breach the law pay for its policing. In the first nine months of operation, £1 million was raised which helped improve the intelligence capability of ANPR teams, and contributed to administrative support.

(gmcg/sp)