A friend was recently part of a Rotary group that was a given a tour of the CCTV control room in Wycombe. He told me that they had all been impressed and surprised by the scope and efficiency of the operation.

Although they had all been aware that CCTV operated in the Wycombe area, none of them had realised the extent of the operation or its enormous potential as a tool for the police and the community.

And if the people who live here don't know that, then the very real deterrent value of the system is not being fully utilised.

While not wishing to add to the dizzying proliferation of signposts that literally litter our roadsides, it strikes me that it would be helpful to mount very large signs on the main roads into the area.

They could have words to the effect that if you break the law in our streets, or behave in an offensive or antisocial way, then the odds are that your image will have been recorded and that you will be apprehended and punished.

My friend told me that every camera in the area is attached to a recording machine, to which the police have access on demand, even if the bank of operators don't pick them up initially.

This is something that we should be shouting about. The operators who man the system 24 hours a day, making Wycombe almost unique throughout the country are, he told me, clearly expert and well-trained. The commentary that they were able to give the visitors describing their procedures and the data protection and civil liberties considerations that dictated those procedures reassured him and convinced him that CCTV is a tool that we undervalue at our peril.

In my travels I have driven into towns that display large signs proclaiming that they are Nuclear Free Zones (they wish!), or twinned with exotic and not-so-exotic foreign towns, or even that they are cities of culture.

A sign telling the ungodly that their activities are being monitored strikes me as being slightly further up the list of Your Top One Hundred Favourite Signs to use a format seemingly beloved by TV at the moment.

There are (very tiny) signs attached to lampposts near cameras notifying pedestrians who are sufficiently interested to read them among all the parking, litter, dog fouling and other restrictive notices.

Bigger signs on the roads may achieve more.