England's most lucrative speed camera revealed - raking in £2.3million in five years

Published 29th Dec 2009

A speed camera which raked in £2.3million in five years has been dubbed England's busiest Gatso.

The camera, located at the bottom of the M11 in Woodford, Essex, flashed 38,243 drivers who broke the 50mph speed limit over the past five years.

At £60 for a fixed penalty ticket - the camera yielded a potential £2.3million in earnings.

Its location and the whereabouts of the country's other speeding hot spots were revealed following an order from the Information Commissioner.

The camera responsible for snaring the most motorists in London was on the A316 Country Way, near Kempton Park Racecourse in South West London, which caught 8491 drivers breaking the speed limit last year.

Prior to that East London's Limehouse Link Tunnel was the most lucrative, catching out 7193 and 5604 drivers in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

In Surrey the camera on the A3 Esher bypass has nabbed the most speeders in the county for three of the last four years. In those three years it was responsible for the issuing of 12,894 tickets.

A camera on the southbound A1 at Elkesley, in Nottinghamshire, was so busy at one stage it was averaging almost 1,000 speeding months per month.

It has been the busiest in the county for the last three years amassing a total of 23,081 speeders, netting a potential £1.4million.

Despite the intervention from the Information Commissioner, many camera partnerships are yet to reveal their top earning sites out of fear the cameras will be targetted by vandals.

Critics claim the latest figures prove that speeding cameras don't work.

A Motorists Against Detection spokesman said they did nothing to make the roads safer.

'They have always been an exercise in making as much money as possible. These cameras that catch the most speeders are not at the most dangerous spots on our road networks.'

'They are positioned at the places where its easiest to catch speeders such as the brow of a hill or where the speed limit changes.

'For these cameras to be raking in all that money year after year shows that the cameras don't work, because if they did there wouldn't be anybody speeding.

'They ought to have a pound sign printed on the side of the boxes because money is what they are about.'

A spokesman for one of the partnerships said: 'Cameras are only ever positioned at places where there has been a history of accident. We do not keep cameras on to raise income.

'Information relating to the exact position of high income generating cameras in the past has resulted in those cameras being attacked and criminal damage caused.

'There is now clear evidence, therefore, that disclosure of the details of sites where enforcement is at its highest will lead to an increase in criminal damage at these locations.'

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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