RESIDENTS in Tidworth and Ludgershall will have to pay up to three times as much for a CCTV service as people living in Devizes.

Under a scheme drawn up by the Kennet Safety Partnership Ludgershall band 'D' council tax payers will have to pay £23.16 a year and Tidworth households an extra £17.42 while Devizes tax payers will face an additional levy of just £7.37.

Ludgershall councillors agreed on Monday to consult the entire village over whether they should go ahead with the scheme.

Parish council chairman Jim Calder thought the extra cost was a 'lot of money' bearing in mind this year's near 10 per cent council tax rise in Wiltshire.

The cost per head is higher in Ludgershall and Tidworth because the partnership opted to levy a direct charge on each community for its share of the proposed system rather than spread the £170,000 annual cost across the entire district's population.

A study commissioned by the partnership revealed the cost of introducing schemes in Ludger-shall, Tidworth, Marlborough, Devizes and Pewsey would be about £750,000, with an annual cost of £170,000.

But there are important issues about which the partnership wants to get the views of members of the public in the relevant areas.

A spokesman said: "The provision of a CCTV system may act as a deterrent, especially against anti-social behaviour and give valuable evidence to the police in solving crime.

However, the majority of crime in Kennet does not take place in town centres and would not be captured."