Plans to install a CCTV network along the Channel coast to catch people-smugglers have been scaled back because Britain has failed to provide the funding it promised, French officials say.
Some of the beaches often used by migrants trying to cross the Channel will be without video surveillance.
A surge of Channel migrant crossings has been forecast as people smugglers take advantage of warmer weather and calmer seas. More than 300 migrants were estimated to have crossed the Channel in eight small boats yesterday in what would be the busiest day of crossings this year if confirmed by the Home Office.
That would take the number of arrivals this year to at least 2,500 — more than double the number at the same time last year — and to more than 1,000 this month.
Project Terminus, as the CCTV network is called, was unveiled last year by French officials, who said it would curtail the number of migrant crossings. Funds for the network were to come from the £54 million that Britain agreed to give France under the Sandhurst treaty signed in 2018.
Advertisement
Coastal mayors were told to install dozens of cameras and to claim back the money from the British government, but they claim that their requests for reimbursement have been refused.
Officials in the village of Wissant, 12 miles west of Calais, said they had been told there was no money available to pay for the nine CCTV cameras and automatic number plate recognition equipment earmarked for their region.
A UK government source denied it had reneged on its offer to fund the CCTV. They said that there had been delays in receiving details from the French government of its procurement of cameras, so Britain was unable to push on with the project or issue a grant of the allocated funds.
Laurence Prouvot, the mayor of Wissant, said: “We are in a small district. I can’t afford to spend I don’t know how much on cameras and wait eight months or two years to be paid back.”
In a sign of the distrust dominating Franco-British relations, some mayors expressed concern that they would never be repaid.
Advertisement
A second version of the project was announced last month under which Britain would pay for the equipment up front. But at a meeting with interior ministry representatives this month the mayors were told that there was enough money to pay for CCTV near Calais only.
Paulette Juilien-Peuvion, mayor of Neufchâtel-Hardelot, south of Boulogne, which was intended to have four cameras, told Le Figaro: “We were told that the budget for the project would only be €800,000 this year. That means only a few areas near Calais are concerned.”
Prouvot said that she was worried people-smugglers would target beaches without CCTV. The interior ministry office in the Calais area said that the project was “under study”.
A Home Office spokesman said the claims were wrong. “The UK pledged to give the French approximately £54 million to tackle illegal migration and small boats,” the official said. “That has not changed and we remain committed to working with France on the activity agreed under the deal, including the deployment of surveillance technology.”
