HASLEMERE has lost out for the third time on funding for closed circuit television.
The news has come as a blow for the town which has been campaigning for years for CCT, to help to reduce crime.
The bid had been submitted to the Home Office at the end of last year by the Community Safety Executive, a group made up of representatives from Surrey County Council, Waverley Borough Council, Waverley police and the health service.
It was made following a government initiative to provide areas across the country with full grant-funding for CCTV. It was expected to have cost Haslemere less than £2,000 a year to finance if Waverley's bid had been successful.
The scheme included the purchase of six mobile cameras, considered to be more effective than a fixed system, to target local hotspots of crime in Haslemere, Godalming and Cranleigh and monitor other areas including traffic flows.
Haslemere town councillors were told of the unsuccessful bid in a letter from Surrey police, at its finance and general purposes committee.
"It is a big loss for the town," said town councillor Michael Barnes who has supported CCTV for Haslemere since he was elected two years ago.
"We do want to have increased security for the town and it has got to be controlled," he said.
He added that the latest setback had put any CCTV scheme "back to square one".
"We have had such a good relationship with the police so I was particularly concerned when out of the blue we received this letter saying the bid had failed," he said.
Mr Barnes believed the town had to make sure in the future that it was better structured and "talking to the right people".
He stressed the importance of "tackling crime by nipping it in the bud. Without any surveillance it makes that more difficult," he claimed.
Haslemere's first bid for joint CCTV funding, to include Godalming and Cranleigh, was made in June, 1998 and was turned down because of the costs involved.
Speaking at last week's town council committee meeting, town councillor Ted Orchard said he believed that the town had been "neglected" over consultations for CCTV.
Mr Orchard said that consultations had taken place "but not with us".
Mrs Jeffers has also raised concerns that Haslemere Town Council had not been kept informed about the latest bid for Home Office funding.
"The police gave a presentation but there was no discussion," she claimed.
Waverley crime prevention officer Pc John Robini said this week that he was disappointed that the government had turned down the bid.
"We will be looking at it again sometime in the future but Waverley is the safest borough in Surrey which is the safest county in the country.
"I assume that other areas which suffered more crime needed it more," said Pc Robini.