Cameras to be axed

Regarding your article “Cameras to be axed” (Journal, August 18). I feel that it defies logic and common sense to close down the Devon and Cornwall Safety Camera Partnership.

If the Devon and Cornwall Police statistics are to be believed, speed cameras have helped reduce road casualties by 40% in the last five years, then there should be more cameras rather than closing the existing ones down.

If this local trend of shutting off the cameras were to be replicated country wide, the loss of lives and those lives ruined would rise dramatically and the cost to the NHS and the associated services linked to traffic accidents would escalate! The loss of revenue from fines from the cameras would be lost.

If this is, as the local authority states, the direct result of the decision of our new Coalition Government, then we need to have an explanation and justification for such a policy. Surely the reason cannot be just cost cutting.

Perhaps Hugo Swire, our elected Coalition representative, could use the good offices of The Journal to explain, or defend, this policy, using facts and figures, rather than mere rhetoric!

Sadly, I take little comfort from the reassurance from the local police, having campaigned for more than two years for more police effective action against speeding in my (our) road. Further, if the Police face likely cuts to both manpower and establishment, what then for safety on our roads?

Roger Thomas,

164A Hulham Road, Exmouth.