DRIVERS in Dorset paid almost £3 million in fines from speed and red light cameras in the last financial year, it has been revealed.

A total of 49,789 fixed penalty tickets were paid in the year to the end of March, bringing in £2,987,340 for the Dorset Safety Camera Partnership.

The figures will be put to members of the Dorset Police Authority's Audit and Performance Review committee when it meets on Thursday June 2.

But chief constable of Dorset, Martin Baker, has already praised the partnership and revealed a fall in the number of fatal and serious road accidents in the county.

"The Dorset Safety Camera partnership project has achieved a successful year on both financial and operational grounds," he says in a report to members.

"A substantial reduction in the number of killed or seriously injured has been achieved and the direct costs of operational activities have been met in full by the Department for Transport."

Figures, also to be released this week, reveal there were 39 fatal accidents in Dorset compared with 46 in the previous year and 52 in 2002/03.

Serious road traffic collisions fell from 345 to 320 in a year and the number of children seriously injured fell from 33 to 26. Two children died on the roads compared with none in the previous year and two the year before that.

The Dorset Safety Camera Partnership was created in 2002 and is comprised of police, local authorities, the Highways Agency, the Dorset and Somerset Strategic Health Authority, the Courts Service and the Crown Prosecution Service.

There are currently 43 fixed camera sites in Dorset, 61 mobile sites and 21 red light camera sites.

First published: May 26