Cuts hit dozens of speed cameras

Hundreds of speed cameras in the West Midlands will be switched off within 15 months following cuts – leaving just 37 working in the Black Country.

Police and council bosses have approved removing the fuses from most of the 213 camera housings at sites where they were rarely in use or not used at all.

Of those, 127 are sites where cameras are rarely switched on since the budget from councils for speed cameras was slashed by £750,000 last April, leaving West Midlands Police to foot the remaining £1m alone.

Over 80 cameras are dummy housings and they will go in 2012/13.

There are 30 cameras where funding has been cut or they were dummies in Wolverhampton out of 40 working housings, 39 out of 48 in Walsall, 45 out of 57 in Sandwell and 34 out of 40 in Dudley.