Inquiry into speed camera sitings


17 March 2004 15:18

COUNCILLORS have demanded more openness about the siting of speed cameras, two months after an Evening News investigation revealed the most serious accident blackspots were not covered.

Norfolk County Council's scrutiny committee expressed concern about the "secret and unaccountable nature" of the team responsible for the cameras, the Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership (NCRP).

In January, the Evening News revealed some of the most serious and frequent accident blackspots in the county were not monitored by speed cameras, while other locations with a less severe accident record, such as Grapes Hill, were snaring dozens of motorists every day.

Nearly 40,000 motorists were caught on speed cameras in Norfolk in 2003 - a rate of 760 a week.

Norfolk police have also launched a fresh report into the siting of speed cameras amid growing hostility from motorists and a suspicion that some locations have more to do with raising revenue than reducing accidents.

Funds raised from fines on speeding motorists are used to pay for the NCRP, with any surplus going to the Treasury's coffers in Whitehall.

At yesterday's (Tues) committee, councillors complained they were unable to get information out of the partnership on basic points such as how much money it spent, how many staff it had, and the siting of cameras.

Celia Cameron, scrutiny committee chairman, said members wanted to know why the partnership was "so exclusive and secretive".

"There is the issue in general of members not knowing who is on the board, what it does or how it makes its decisions," she said. "I think there is an issue about whether we should have member representation on the board."

Stephen Bett, chairman of the planning, transportation and the environment review panel and also a member of Norfolk Police Authority, said the NCRP lacked transparency.

"As far as the Police Authority are concerned the police are very nervous about the criteria being observed by the camera partnership," he said during the meeting.

"When the Chief Constable asked where the sites were and why they were there he got very short shrift and he is not very happy about that.

"There is very great concern from the police because they are getting the flak for what's going on and they have no control over it."

He added the police were concerned about whether cameras were being sited at proper accident blackspots.

"The police are doing their own independent investigation into this, looking at where the cameras go and everything else about it. I think it would be very useful to have because it will tell us where the accidents are."

The worst accident blackspots in 2003 included Barrett Road and Ketts Hill in Norwich, the Thickthorn roundabout, the B1149 in Felthorpe, Tunstead Road in Wroxham, Drayton Hall Lane in Scarning, and the A17 in King's Lynn. Dangerous sites on trunk roads where there have been fatal accidents in the last six years include the A47 Acle Straight, the A140 Norwich to Cromer road, the A1065 Swaffham to Fakenham road, the A140 Norwich to Ipswich road and the A11 Norwich to Thetford road.

There are currently no fixed cameras on any of these routes although one is being planned for the A11 at Ketteringham and another on the A47 at Burlingham. The NCRP said it did monitor these major routes with its four mobile speed camera vans. But there is still a fixed camera on notorious Grapes Hill where there have been just seven "serious" accidents in the past three years and no deaths.

Road safety campaigners have long argued studies have consistently shown speed kills. But a recent study by powerful motoring lobby the RAC Foundation found a fifth of speed cameras in London were sited where there was no serious accident record.

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