No Plans To Turn Bath’s Speed Cameras Back On

Bath and North East Somerset Council say they have no plans to turn local speed cameras back on after it was announced yesterday that cameras would be re-enabled across Bristol.

Avon and Somerset Police and Bristol City Council will be switching the speed and traffic light cameras back on next year across the city.

National studies consistently demonstrate that cameras can play an effective part in helping to reduce road casualties. Revenue raised from the cameras is used to fund their maintenance and enforcement.

A request from the chief constable of Avon and Somerset Police in June to turn fixed speed cameras across the area back on was met with mixed reactions.

Nick Gargan wrote to local councils offering the constabulary’s help to reactivate the cameras which were turned off in 2011.

The cameras were switched off after the government cut funding for the Safety Camera Partnership, putting control of the cameras in the hands of the police and councils.

Avon and Somerset Police and Bath and North East Somerset Council could not afford to pay for their continued use.

The Council at the time said that they principally support the idea of the reactivation of the cameras across the area.

The chief constable wrote to five local councils saying that he had “not seen any evidence of any value that say speed cameras harm”.

“I have seen evidence that on balance they can help and reduce casualties. When I first arrived as chief constable, I was quite surprised to learn that the cameras had been switched off. The evidence steers me firmly in the direction of trying to get them switched back on.”

A spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset Council told the BBC in June: “Although [the] council is supportive in principle of the police proposal to re-commission static speed cameras, the council has only two digital camera sites which are capable of being reactivated.

“Accident levels at both sites have remained low since the 2011 switch-off; therefore the council cannot justify the initial start-up expenditure.”

Following the announcement yesterday of Bristol’s cameras being switched back on next year, Bath and North East Somerset Council have reiterated that they have no plans to re-enable cameras in Bath.