A very tall post recently appeared in New Ferry Road next to the bridge over the bypass. It was about twice the height of a lamp post and right next to one.

In due course, a rectangular box with two hemispherical protuberances surmounted by what appeared to be camera lenses appeared at the top of this post, pointing towards the toll bar junction.

A stick-on label warns that CCTV is in operation, but it is totally different from any other CCTV system I've ever seen, and why have two of them - unsteerable - side by side?

Anyone seen anything like this or have any idea what the Council is up to this time?

Number plate recognition, or basically higher def cameras.

Why the two cameras? Stereoscopic vision perhaps? Or perhaps bidirectional optical communication?

I don't believe the shape of the housing implies anything about the definition of the camera. That's all due to the imaging chip and the optics in front of it. The lenses seem to me to be on the small side for a high definition camera at around an inch.

Perhaps I will take a pic. and include it here. I'm not sure it's anything to do with CCTV. It may be something intended to get the new LEDs on the bypass working. There is a string of about four in the cutting by the bridge which has NEVER shown as much as a glimmer!

Considering it is between a newsagents that got robbed at 6.30 in the morning and a londis that got fire bombed plus the scroats on the motorcross bikes living on the pub site i say a camera would still be a good thing .

Well, it might or might not be a good thing. The evidence is that CCTV cameras are pretty useless as regards preventing crime but excellent at costing a lot of money. But as far as I can see the cameras - if that is what they are - are not looking at either potential crime site anyway. They are fixed to look horizontally towards Beb. station, getting on for a mile away!

Norman street in north end has one right outside a newsagents.keeps an eye on tbe shop and local drug transactions.been quite a bit of anti social behaviour there.

Are you sure of that? This thing is looking in the opposite direction from the newsagent!

The more I look at this thing and its deployment, the more convinced I am that it is some kind of free space optical data link, and not a CCTV system at all. But what data is it communicating, and to/from where?

Could they be traffic cameras ?

some sort of wi-fi repeater?
could be a wi-fi service in the making.

Well, I can only see one end of the link, if that's what it is.I remain baffled!

OK, I got the binoculars out. It is definitely two CCTV cameras, but what they are looking at remains a mystery. They cannot see the shop that was robbed, and have a pretty poor view of the bypass.