Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety project manager Steve Whitehouse rubbished claims that Lancashire's fleet of Gatsos, which snared more than £3.4m from motorists last year, are nothing more than cash cows and insisted every single one improved road safety.

In one of his first interviews since taking up his role, he adds there are NO plans to reduce the number of cameras and doing so would see accidents increase.

It comes only weeks after Tory leader David Cameron said a Conservative government would hold a nationwide review of cameras and get rid of any just there to sting motorists for cash.

Mr Whitehouse said: "Speed cameras, or safety cameras as we prefer to call them, do work. There are reams of evidence now to suggest that they bring speeds down significantly at those sites and up to half a mile either side of those sites.

"Speed we reckon is an element in about 40% of accidents, so the maths is quite clear – if you bring speeds down at sites known for accidents, it reduces speed-related accidents."

Mr Cameron claimed to be able to name several cameras only in place to grab cash from drivers.

But asked whether he was confident that did not apply to any in Lancashire, Mr Whitehouse said: "Undoubtedly, yes. Every site is based on casualty reduction initially. With the fixed sites, I'm confident that every site meets the criteria and was instigated properly."

He added: "Yes, it's inconvenient, it's unpleasant, people get caught by them, but the only people who pay the fines are the people who have done the speeding in those areas."

While there are no plans to change the number of fixed cameras, plans are being drawn up to roll out sites of community concern where mobile cameras can be placed, doubling their number across Lancashire.

It comes after the county's most successful speed camera technician last month lost his job following a probe which showed a speed gun had been wrongly calibrated.

He was never prosecuted but the episode sent public confidence in cameras crashing to an all time low as more than £35,000 in fines was repaid to motorists.

Mr Whitehouse said: "The fact that this has been dealt with so robustly shows me that people can have confidence that as soon as this issue was identified the individual himself has been dealt with and the cameras themselves have all been dealt with.

"In many ways it has given us a chance to reassure people and we know from the feedback we get that people have that confidence back now."

Lancashire now has the third highest number of fixed cameras in the country – 345 compared to 63 five years ago.



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