Devizes CCTV system will have to be shut down and its equipment dismantled if it cannot fill a gap in its funding by the end of March.

Devizes Development Partnership, which has run the system since it was set up in September 2007, said last October that if Wiltshire Council was not prepared to provide the annual funding formerly made available by Kennet District Council, the system would have to be mothballed.

As the deadline moves ever closer, there is still no indication that Wiltshire Council will come up with the necessary £11,000 and no other sources of funding have been found.

Peter Lay, chairman of the partnership, said: “We have written to Wiltshire Council who came up with the idea of amalgamating our system with Salisbury’s, which is council run.

“But that would undermine a lot of the strengths of the Devizes system, which is digital, as the Salisbury system is still analogue, dated and enormously inefficient.

“We have proved our system works and we don’t want to undermine that.

“We only have limited reserves and cannot go on running the system without support from county.

“We understand Wiltshire Council is strapped for cash but the need for CCTV has been established in the county. It would be a pity for it to be lost.”