Campaigners said the results of a new survey showed the technology is being used as a “cheap alternative to policing”.
Some 59,753 cameras are installed on local roads and buildings across the UK, equivalent to one camera for every 1000 people and triple the number recorded a decade ago.
The Western Isles emerged as the area with the highest number of CCTV cameras per 1000 residents, at 8.3, compared with 1.4 in Glasgow and 1.0 in Edinburgh, according to the study of 418 councils by privacy campaigners Big Brother Watch.
Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “Local councils across Britain are creating enormous networks of CCTV surveillance at great expense, but the evidence for the ability of CCTV to deter or solve crimes is sketchy at best.
“The quality of footage is frequently too poor to be used in courts, the cameras are often turned off to save money and control rooms are rarely manned 24 hours a day.
“With crime on the increase, it is understandable that some people want more CCTV, but we would all feel safer with more police on the beat, there would be fewer crimes, and those crimes that do occur would be solved faster.” Scottish ministers and prosecutors have said that CCTV is “crucial” for the prevention of crime and “invaluable” in prosecutions, with evidence taken from the cameras being used in recent high-profile court cases, including the trial of Marek Harcar for the murder of Moira Jones and Vitas Plytnykas for the murder of Jolanta Bledaite.
But a Metropolitan Police study found that for every 1000 CCTV cameras only one crime is solved every year, and privacy campaigners have questioned whether a rise in the use of CCTV cameras has been mirrored by a fall in crime or a rise in convictions.
The Big Brother Is Watching report, which was compiled from Freedom of Information requests to every local authority, found that Portsmouth and Nottinghamshire councils are in control of the most cameras, with 1454 each. Fife Council is third on the league table, with 1350 cameras under its control.
South Lanarkshire said it had 106 “public-facing” cameras but also recorded 1577 “internal” cameras, which Big Brother Watch said may include those in council-owned buildings monitoring members of the public.
Four out of the 10 councils with the highest number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people, according to the population in the 2001 census, were in Scotland, with the Western Isles, Dundee City, South Lanarkshire and Shetland Islands all entering the top 10 league table.
The report said: “There is obviously a role to play for technology in general, and CCTV in particular, in law enforcement and we are not opposed to CCTV per se.
“But the extent of our commitment to CCTV -- to the exclusion of other forms of crime prevention -- is remarkable.”
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