Councillor hits back at plans to install fixed speed cameras

A detailed report by the 95 Alive York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership, has earmarked 28 spots across the county at which it believes mobile speed cameras could be used, with the potential to cut more than 30 road deaths over the next four years.

If the report is agreed by North Yorkshire County Council, four cameras are to be introduced as part of a year-long trial next month. That could result in fixed cameras becoming permanent in the county.

But Coun John Watson, deputy leader of North Yorkshire County Council, says the cameras were not needed on North Yorkshire's roads.

He said: "My own personal predisposition is strongly against fixed speed cameras.

"The road safety record in North Yorkshire is very good and in any of the areas elsewhere that have adopted them, the number of road deaths has not really changed while the number of fines for prosecutions from speed cameras has gone up considerably.

"People are worried it is a way of raising money for the local authority but this is not the case.

"You can't turn these cameras off if they are fixed and while they may be useful in an area for a while, when that problem is corrected the camera is still there.

"The surveys we have done indicates they will have a high degree of acceptability among the public of more than 50 per cent, but that is not my experience of talking to people.

"Usually when I tell people that North Yorkshire is the only council without fixed speed cameras, they say long may it continue."

Road safety campaigners have dismissed Coun Watson's comments and claim permanent cameras would have a huge impact on North Yorkshire's roads.

Helen Mervill, a spokeswoman for the road safety charity Brake, said: "We would welcome the introduction of speed cameras in North Yorkshire.

"Considering the overwhelming evidence that speed cameras improve safety on roads; that their introduction typically results in a reduction in collisions, serious injuries and deaths, it seems a ridiculous state of affairs, that they are not already in place in the county.

"When speed cameras were introduced on the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass Trans-Pennine Route in South Yorkshire, there was an 82 per cent reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured.

"The introduction of speed cameras in North Yorkshire will doubtlessly save lives on the roads."

The report is prepared by members of North Yorkshire County Council, City of York Council and North Yorkshire Police and is set to go before councillors for approval in May.

If the report is acted upon, a 12-month trial is expected to take place, financed by an estimated 250,000 in grant funding, with three cameras set up in York and one elsewhere in the county.

Although the trial cameras will be mobile, they are expected to stay in one place, and it will be the first time they have been formally introduced in the county.

If a decision is made to adopt the scheme permanently, the cameras' data will be annually reviewed to assess whether to install more fixed cameras.

The rise of speed cameras began in 2000, when the Government published its 10-year Road Safety Strategy to reduce casualties by 2010.

North Yorkshire Police conducted a feasibility study in 2003 but the county council decided against it. The decision was revisited in 2008 – with North Yorkshire by then the only county without speed cameras – and the latest study begun.