Cabling in the Civic Centre, where the hardware for the camera system will be housed, the Dunedin Central police station, where the cameras will be monitored, and the Octagon had been laid since the remaining funding for the $200,000 project was found in March, Dunedin City Council customer advocate Adrian Blair said.
The 14 cameras - to be installed in the Octagon and the first block of George St - had been bought and were being tested by the supplier.
A secure wireless bridge, on which images would be transmitted to the police station, would be tested before the cameras were installed in late July or early August.
The whole system would be trialled and refined before going live full-time in November.
To guard people's privacy, procedural guidelines in accordance with guidelines from the Privacy Commissioner were nearly ready to be presented for council approval, Mr Blair said.
Dunedin-Clutha area commander Inspector Dave Campbell said police, who had their own national guidelines for involvement with CCTV operation, had also prepared some draft operating guidelines, to be presented to the council this week.
He expected monitors to be set up in the next few weeks in the Dunedin Central police station main watch house and in the nearby senior sergeant's office.
The cameras would be monitored continuously only on Friday and Saturday nights and other busy nights, such as New Year's Eve, by volunteers from Dunedin's Community Patrol.
Images from the cameras would be stored for about a month, after which the system would automatically start over-writing itself.
Police and volunteer training would take place in August and September.
Any volunteers would be vetted by police and subject to the police code of conduct.
They would only be able to rewind and fast-forward, not copy or download, information from the cameras, Insp Campbell said.
Only certain police staff would be able to download information from the system.
Tubby Hopkins, from Community Patrol Dunedin South, said about a dozen community patrol members had indicated interest in doing the monitoring work, and were enthusiastic about getting started.
"It's quite different from patrolling. You get to be closer to the action.
"There's a lot more going on in the Octagon on a Friday night than there is in South Dunedin or North Dunedin, so quite a few people are quite enthusiastic."
