The lives and safety of motorists living in and travelling through Abbey Hills Road, Oldham have been put at high risk again, after vandals used a power tool to cut down and steal the head of a speed safety camera housing unit.

The incident, has sparked disgust amongst other Oldham residents, council members and members of the Greater Manchester Casualty Reduction Partnership (DRIVESAFE) and Police.

Claire Wightman, Communications Manager for DRIVESAFE states; 'Statistics at that location show that, over a 3 year period, 7 collisions occurred where people involved were either killed or seriously injured and 29 other collisions, where people suffered minor personal injuries. Since the camera has been installed, these figures have been reduced to 1 serious collision and 9 personal injury collisions, proving it has been an effective piece of engineering.

Without any kind of speed deterrent, it is likely that the statistics will rise quickly again. Will the vandals be able to live with someone's death on their conscience if something happens before the housing can be replaced?'

Mike Downes, Project Manager at DRIVESAFE says; 'We are in the process of getting a new housing installed at the earliest possible opportunity at a cost of £3750.00. We owe it to the local community to replace the safety camera, which was introduced to protect them from speeding motorists. The cost of the replacement will be recovered from fines taken from other speeding offences.

I appreciate that not everyone favours cameras and we would never claim that they are a one-stop answer to all problems on our roads. They are however a very effective tool in slowing people down and lowering the number of collisions.

Many people believe we are trying to catch motorists out, but that is far from the truth. Each camera housing is well signed, painted yellow and the location published on our website. The decision on locations is completely statistically led, through surveys showing high average speeds and high numbers of serious collisions. All such information is given to us through Oldham MBC, the Police and Greater Manchester Transportation Unit.

PC Matthews, investigating the cases claims; 'This was obviously a well thought through attack on a piece of equipment that has been installed to help save lives. A safety camera is quite often chosen as a last resort to solving a speeding problem, after Oldham MBC have tried and tested other possible solutions. We are conducting a full investigation on this incident and would appreciate any information from the community which might assist in identifying the offender.'