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£3m 'anti-terror' CCTV cameras 'set up to spy on Muslims' to be covered

The 218 cameras have sprung up in Birmingham’s Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook areas – to the outrage of residents who say they were not asked.

They have been paid for with £3million from the Association of Chief Police Officers’ terror and allied matters fund. None of them will be used until a public consultation exercise has taken place.

Rodger Godsiff, Lab­our MP for Hall Green, said: ‘Police have got themselves into a bit of a hole now because they have a difficult problem to explain to the public and try and get them on their side.

.‘If the money did not come out of a counter-terrorism budget they may have got a different reaction.’