TWENTY schools in Newport will benefit from a £500,000 cash boost from the Home Office for the council's pioneering CCTV in Schools initiative.

The move follows the success of a pilot scheme at Eveswell Primary School, which has seen a drastic reduction in incidents of vandalism since cameras were installed in December last year.

Newport council received the good news yesterday. It comes on top of the £2.7 million in government cash earmarked for 16 new CCTV schemes in Wales.

The Home Office cash will go to the Newport Communi-ty Safety Partnership, which is behind the CCTV in Schools project. The new award will enable a further 20 schools in the town to be included in the scheme.

Chris Freegard, (pictured) managing director of Newport council and chairman of the Newport Community Safety Partner-ship, said: "I am delighted that we have received this funding. Newport council spent over £350,000 on school vandalism last year. "It is important to note that the financial cost of repairing damage has to be paid for by each individual school.

"This money could otherwise be spent on the educational needs of our children. "Vandalism also causes considerable disruption to the school, as whole sections of a school can be made unusable as the damage is cleared up and repairs are carried out." The CCTV in Schools initiative was developed jointly by Newport council and Gwent Police with a consortium of private companies.

The cameras were installed at Eveswell Primary School in December 2000, with a further three cameras in February this year.

The school was chosen for the pilot as it was suffering through high levels of anti-social behaviour in its grounds out of school hours.

The school is now monitored all year round from the council's CCTV control room in the Civic Centre, and there have been no further cases of anti-social behaviour.

Newport council said work has already started on installing the cameras at Maindee Primary School and the council have the funds available to offer CCTV to a total of 20 schools - they just need to sign up.