A NERVE centre that will watch over a city's security night and day will be opened officially next week.

The Alarm and Emergency Service of Sunderland City Council has just completed a £180,000 reorganisation to handle almost every aspect of security, monitoring, closed-circuit surveillance and emergency alerts in the area.

The new headquarters of the service, in the basement of Sunderland Civic Centre in Burdon Road, has been designed and built to strict British Standards.

The centre's 20 staff have 119 cameras watching the city and helping look after its safety, along with Northumbria Police. The network is due to be expanded again to take in another 60 cameras to be installed on the Sunderland Direct extension to the Metro light railway transport system.

Security officer Barry Frost, who is in charge of the centre to be opened on Wednesday, said: "While Sunderland sleeps, the new centre will be working around the clock, 365 days a year.