Safe Speed Forums

Buckinghamshire speed cameras could be axed
By Oliver Evans 3:21pm Monday 7th June 2010

SPEED cameras sites could be removed after bosses agreed to review funding for the controversial devices.

Buckinghamshire County Council is carrying out a ‘cost benefit analysis’ of cash given to Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership, which manages cameras.
It pledged to ‘undertake a review of individual safety camera sites which may result in the removal [of] some locations’.
It comes after a probe urged the authority to target funding ‘where it can make most impact’.
A ‘greater focus’ should be placed on ‘innovative speed reduction initiatives’ such as community speedwatch, a scheme which gives speed recorders to residents, it found.
Council chief executive Chris Williams today even said these could be used to point out local culprits to the community.
It should ‘consider the option of naming and shaming people, local people, who they catch’.
Mr Williams said: “I want to see much greater emphasis going down to local communities, taking responsibility for controlling speed in their own areas.”

The ‘majority of perpetrators’ are local, he said.
As previously reported (see link, bottom of story) the probe found cameras have a ‘definite and proven role’ in reducing casualties but are expensive.
They are managed at fixed and mobile sites.
Yet Cllr Martin Tett said he was a ‘supporter of speed cameras’ and warned against diverting cash away from them.
They were popular with residents, who also wanted measures such as flashing speed signs, he said.
Cllr Tett said: “They would like to see more money down at local level but they don’t want to see that at the expense of cameras”.
Cllr Valerie Letheren, cabinet member for transportation, said: “The people who don’t like the cameras are the ones that get caught by them.”
The partnership got £822,000 from the council last year. It lost the right to keep fines in April 2007 and is now funded via Government grants to councils.
The Conservative Party pledged in its manifesto to stop funding for new fixed cameras and look to ‘more effective ways to make our roads safer’.
Swindon Borough Council famously stopped using its four fixed cameras but continued with mobile enforcement.
Yet the report says it is too early to assess the impact and the number of cameras was ‘very small’ compared to Bucks, which has 51 fixed and 58 mobile camera locations (see link, bottom of story for locations).
The council probe found the number of adults killed or seriously injured fell from 440 in 1998 to 242 next year and from 44 to 12 for children.
A safety scheme at Chalkpit Lane in Marlow, which cost £21,000 and used new markings and used a skid resistant surface was singled out for praise.
Similar schemes are ‘very good value for money’ the review found.
The review was carried out by a sub-group of BCC's overview and scrutiny commissioning committee and accepted by the cabinet today.

A ‘greater focus’ should be placed on ‘innovative speed reduction initiatives’ such as community speedwatch, a scheme which gives speed recorders to residents, it found.

The ‘majority of perpetrators’ are local, he said.

As previously reported (see link, bottom of story) the probe found cameras have a ‘definite and proven role’ in reducing casualties

Cllr Valerie Letheren, cabinet member for transportation, said: “The people who don’t like the cameras are the ones that get caught by them.”

A safety scheme at Chalkpit Lane in Marlow, which cost £21,000 and used new markings and used a skid resistant surface was singled out for praise.
Similar schemes are ‘very good value for money’ the review found.