The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire says it is “shameful” that the county has no fixed speed cameras .
David Skaith told members of North Yorkshire Council’s Richmond area committee that new long-term transport funding provided an opportunity to introduce permanent cameras as part of efforts to improve road safety.
North Yorkshire is one of only a few in England that does not have any fixed cameras and instead relies on mobile speed vans.
The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority has approved a £456.2m four-year transport settlement covering 2026 to 2030, including £30m ringfenced for safer streets.
Mr Skaith told councillors at the meeting on Monday:
“For the first time we have a dedicated funding stream for road safety, which means we have £30m to make our streets safer for everyone that uses them.
“A key part of the funding is to deliver the county’s first speed cameras, which we haven’t had previously.
“I think it is wrong that we don’t have any fixed speed cameras.”
The mayor said decisions on where cameras should be installed would be an operational matter for the police and York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership, based on available evidence.
But he added:
“We do, though, need the council to move much quicker on the permissions to end this county’s shameful record as one of the two places in England without a single fixed camera.”
The Road Safety Partnership says York and North Yorkshire are among the few areas of England without static cameras and that academic reviews it commissioned found “strong evidence” that combining fixed cameras with existing mobile enforcement would help reduce casualties.
However, Cllr Les disputed the suggestion that the council had held up the process.
Speaking after the meeting, he said:
“We have acceded to the mayor’s requests as soon as the mayor’s requests were received — for some period of time we had not received any request from the mayor.”
The council leader also questioned the benefits of fixed cameras, saying he believed “the jury was still out on the efficacy of fixed speed cameras”.
“My experience of speed cameras is that motorists slow down and then speed up once past the fixed camera,”
He added.
Cllr Les also said evidence he had seen comparing North Yorkshire with West Yorkshire suggested accident statistics per head of population were no worse in North Yorkshire despite the absence of permanent cameras.
Last month, a first fixed speed camera in North Yorkshire was reinstalled on the A64 in Sherburn at a location where a previous one was toppled over hours before it was due to go live.
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