SIGNS warning drivers where speed cameras are operating in Worcestershire could soon be removed.

Rod Reynolds, the new head of West Mercia Safer Roads Partnership, said he was considering getting rid of the black and white warning signs.

“I’m looking at whether we’ll go down that route,” he said. “It’s not a legal requirement to have those signs and other partnerships have done it already.

“We shouldn’t have to proscribe where we enforce the limit.”

The Government introduced guidelines requiring speed camera warning signs and highly visible yellow speed cameras in 2001 following concern they were being used to trap drivers and generate income from fines. But they are not required by law. In August your Worcester News revealed the amount of money generated from speeding fines across the West Mercia region had quadrupled from £615,680 in 1997 to £2,772,780 in 2006.

Those fines were given to motorists caught on camera as well as those stopped by the police, although the number of fines being issued has actually reduced since the West Mercia Safer Roads Partnership was set up in 2003 to 58,000 in 2007/08.

The money generated from speeding fines goes into the Treasury’s coffers and the Government then makes road safety grants to local councils.

The partnership is funded by Government money handed down to local authorities including Worcestershire County Council and supported by the police, and other major regional public sector agencies.

Mr Reynolds, aged 54, the former superintendent for south Worcestershire police, said he would consider average speed check cameras in the longer term for the county’s more dangerous roads such as the A44 or the A443.

However, he said he was keen to change attitudes that speed cameras were anti-motorist.

“There’s the danger we can alienate people, but we’re listening to drivers, listening to communities,” he said.

A wider part of that approach has been West Mercia Police’s introduction of the scaled speeding penalty where low-level speeding drivers can avoid penalty points by taking a voluntary four-hour course. “They can pay the fine and take the points or go on the course,” he said.