CRIME-fighters will receive a boost today when a multi-million pound Government scheme to improve CCTV security camera schemes is announced.

Altogether, 22 CCTV camera schemes in Chester-le-Street, Peterlee, Sunderland, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Newcastle, and others in the south of the region, will receive £3.5m.

The money has been allocated after statistics showed that the so-called "eyes in the sky", which have been criticised as representing an invasion of privacy, have significantly reduced crime in individual districts. In Sunderland, CCTV has led directly to 225 arrests.

Individual schemes include a £29,000 upgrade to the existing system operated by the district council and police in Chester-le-Street so that five further districts of the town can be monitored.

In Peterlee, £22,970 has been allocated to enable the town's leisure centre to be watched.

The project, operated by the District of Easington Commu-nity Safety Partnership, is an extension to of the town's current car parks CCTV system.

The biggest hand-out in the region has gone to the Tyneside Metro, which has been granted £750,000 so 58 stations can have improvements. The money will also be used at stations being built in Metro's link up with Wearside.

Newcastle city centre has been given £500,000, Felling town centre, in Gateshead, £170,000 and the Wear Watch mobile camera project £168,000. Other areas across Tyne and Wear and Northumberland received smaller amounts of cash.

Director of the crime reduction unit at the Government office for the North-East, Alan Brown, said: "The breadth of applications which have been successful indicates the level of support the public have for CCTV cameras.

"CCTV has proven itself as an invaluable tool in crime reduction and in evidence gathering in the most serious of criminal cases in the region, such as murder and terrorism, and is one of the key contributors to reducing the fear of crime in the community," he said.