End for cameras

The end of speed cameras starts this week – with the first 79 set to be turned off on Sunday.

Oxfordshire is axing all its cameras after 40% road safety budget cuts from central government.

Devon and Cornwall is heading the same way, with the camera authority being wound up completely and 40 staff made redundant.

Derbyshire is to axe three cameras already and is considering turning off another 12. And Somerset is reviewing its speed traps.

The news was predicted last month in MCN by a leading government transport advisor. Robert Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said cameras were “certain” to be axed in government spending cuts.

A spokesman for the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership, which operates Oxfordshire’s cameras, said: “They will be switched off by August 1.”

Road safety minister Mike Penning said it was “another example of this government delivering on its pledge to end the war on the motorist”.

Read the full report on page 22.