Rail station CCTV to reach police in real time under £17 million plan
Key Points
- The UK government is spending £17 million to connect station CCTV to the British Transport Police for real-time footage access.
- Transport minister Keir Mather confirmed the funding in a written parliamentary answer on 4 June 2026.
- The rail network has more than 125,000 CCTV cameras, owned and run by individual train operators and Network Rail.
- The Department for Transport does not hold a central dataset on how CCTV quality, coverage or functionality varies between operators.
- A new Visual Safety and Security Systems strategy is cited as part of wider work to improve CCTV consistency.
Station CCTV footage will reach the British Transport Police in real time under a £17 million government programme, Transport minister Keir Mather has confirmed.
Mather set out the spending and a wider set of measures in a written answer on Thursday (4 June )to Laura Kyrke-Smith, the Labour MP for Aylesbury, who had asked what assessment the Department for Transport has made of variations in CCTV quality, coverage and functionality across train operators and rail infrastructure providers.
Mather said the railway is a CCTV-rich environment with more than 125,000 cameras across the network. He confirmed that CCTV systems are owned and managed by individual train operating companies and Network Rail, and that the Department does not hold a centralised dataset on variations in quality, coverage or functionality.
The £17 million programme connects station CCTV to the British Transport Police and is designed to enable greater real-time access to footage across the network. Mather said the funding sits alongside other work the Department is doing with the rail industry to improve the consistency and effectiveness of CCTV.
He also pointed to the recently published Visual Safety and Security Systems strategy as part of that effort. Mather described the strategy and the police connection programme as among multiple initiatives intended to make CCTV more consistent and effective across operators and infrastructure.
Questions about camera quality
Kyrke-Smith’s question, tabled on 29 May , asked specifically about trends in the level of variation in camera quality, coverage and functionality between different train operating companies and rail infrastructure providers.
Mather’s reply did not provide figures on those variations. He stated that because individual operators and Network Rail own and run their own systems, the Department does not hold a single central record of how quality, coverage or functionality differs across the network.
The 125,000 camera figure refers to the total across the network rather than a per-operator breakdown. Mather did not set out how those cameras are distributed between stations, trains and other rail infrastructure, or how many are currently linked to the British Transport Police.
The police connection programme
The £17 million is directed at connecting station CCTV to the British Transport Police so officers can access footage in real time.
Mather said this would enable greater real-time access across the network. He did not state how many stations are covered by the programme, the timeline for the work, or when the connections are due to be completed.
The Visual Safety and Security Systems strategy was cited by Mather as recently published, though the answer did not detail its specific commitments or targets.
He framed both the strategy and the funding as steps towards greater consistency in how CCTV operates across train operating companies and Network Rail.
