In answer to a request from the City of Dauphin’s Protective Services Committee, a new, high-resolution surveillance system has been installed at the D-Town Plaza Skatepark.

“The skate park cameras have been on the radar for a long time and now they have finally come to fruition,” said mayor Christian Laughland, adding the 4k camera provides views with a quality image, “People can go to the City of Dauphin website and view it there. It uploads a new picture every 60 seconds which is great.”

The system, Laughland said, will also allow the city to provide high-resolution video footage to the RCMP at their request.

“But it’s not just for crime, it’s a tourism thing, too,” Laughland said,

“There’s lots of places where you can go online and look and see a webcam and you can see what the weather is like. You can see how the community looks and stuff like that. So I mean I think it goes beyond crime.”

However, crime is one of the major focusses of the camera and Laughland encourages anyone who sees suspicious activity while viewing the pictures to contact Dauphin RCMP at 204-622-5020 for non emergencies and 911 or 204-622-5050 in an emergency situation.

Laughland added if the camera proves a successful as it first appears to be, there is a possibility to expand locations.

“It’s up in the air right now, but this has gotten a lot of good reactions by the public when the City posted about it on Facebook recently. A lot of people were fans of it, so that’s good to see,” he said. “We can’t go out putting cameras everywhere, but maybe some hot spots. It’s possible down the road for sure.”

Anyone wanting to check out the live conditions of the D-Town Plaza Skatepark can visit dauphin.ca/p/dauphin-skatepark.