Cameras bid to cure blackspots (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Cameras bid to cure blackspots

SPEED cameras at two accident blackspots in the Stratford district are set to go live over the next few weeks

The new cameras on the A439 Warwick Road at Blackhill, and the A429 Portobello crossroads near Shipston, were put up by the Warwickshire Casualty Reduction Partnership earlier this year, but work needed to enable the sites has only just been completed.

Both the A439 and A429 Fosse Way are known to have histories of accidents, some of them fatal, and it is hoped that the cameras will reduce speeding as well as the number of casualties from speed-related collisions.

Last November, Stratford teenager Mat Downer and friend Tom Haycraft died when Tom's Citroen Saxo was in collision with a lorry on the A439 at Blackhill. The results of an independent inquiry into the crash are due soon.

However, the partnership has said that this was a not a factor in its decision to site a camera by the Marraway junction, and that the road had been under consideration for some time.

Partnership chairman Chief Superintendent Jon Bond said: "I'm hoping that these cameras will be entirely successful in encouraging motorists to drive within the speed limit, because if this happens we hope to see a fall in the number of people being unnecessarily killed or seriously injured on this road.

"We have certainly done what we can to help motorists, the cameras are highly visible and we have installed warning signs in advance of the cameras. Regular users of the routes should also have had the opportunity to get used to the cameras. It's now the turn of the motorists to help themselves."