Call for more road cameras

A Fylde councillor is calling for a £1m pot to reduce accidents on Lancashire highways to be spent on introducing average speed cameras on A roads.
By David Sharman
Published 7th Oct 2013, 17:30 BST
Coun Tim Ashton (below), who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.Coun Tim Ashton (below), who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.
Coun Tim Ashton (below), who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.

Coun Tim Ashton, who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, made the call after an announcement that £1m would be invested in road safety projects across the county.

Coun Ashton, who previously served as the authority’s cabinet member for highways and transport until his Tory administration lost control earlier this year, said: “There have been some fatalities on the A584 and A583, so the main arterial roads is where I’d want to put average speed cameras.”

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The cameras, unlike fixed speed cameras, track motorists’ average speeds between two separate points.

Coun Tim Ashton, who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.Coun Tim Ashton, who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.
Coun Tim Ashton, who represents Lytham on Lancashire County Council, has called for average speed cameras to be introduced.

Coun Ashton had made an enquiry at last week’s full meeting of the council about the number of people killed or seriously injured on Lancashire’s roads.

Labour councillor Coun John Fillis, who has taken over as cabinet member for highways, responded that the proposed £1m would be made available following a research project by the University of Central Lancashire – which will determine how best the money can be spent.

Coun Ashton added: “I will be interested to see what the results of the research are, it will be good to pause and take a breath so we cant take lessons from that and move forward.

“We’ll listen to the experts.”

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Latest figures produced by the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety show 1,864 people were seriously injured or killed on the authority’s roads between 2010 and 2013 – a decrease of 3.9 per cent compared to the previous three years.

A total of 612 incidents where people were seriously injured or killed happened on Lancashire’s roads between July last year and June this year, a drop of 4.3 per cent on the previous year.

This compares to 56 incidents in Blackpool over the same time period, a reduction of 18.8 per cent.

Coun Ashton added: “I think the results were welcome but we’ve got to continue the good work we do with Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety.”

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Coun Fillis told the meeting: “We have a lot of information about accidents, now it’s time to actually put that information into action.”

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Related topics:LancashireFyldeLancashire County CouncilLytham