A POLICE force has been told of rural residents’ frustration at seeing speed camera vans on A-roads rather than in speeding hotspot villages.

North Yorkshire County Council’s Thirsk and Malton constituency committee chairman Councillor Caroline Goodrick, who represents Hovingham and Sheriff Hutton, said speeding had become an issue for every village.

She raised the concerns following a presentation about rural policing by Inspector Jon Grainge. She said: “People get really upset because of the prevalence of camera vans on the A64 and at Flaxton and they won’t come out to the smaller villages where they know it is a problem.”

While the force has repeatedly stated its camera vans are sent to sites which have a history of accidents, former North Yorkshire Police officer and author GP Taylor is among numerous critics of the road safety initiative.

In 2015 he said: “It is as if drivers are seen as a cash cow to be squeezed until the pips squeak.

“The old cherry is used every time to justify the existence of camera vans that they make the roads safe.

“I don’t think that long stretches of dual carriageway are the most dangerous of places to drive. It is a well-known fact that dual carriageways and motorways have the fewest accidents and fatalities.”

Cllr Goodrick said speeding was raised at every parish council meeting that she attended.

She told Insp Grainge: “Your presence would give the community the reassurances that action was being taken.Insp Grainge said he would pass on the concerns to the camera van controllers but said they had a responsibility to try and prevent fatal accidents that happen in the A64, often due to excess speeds.

He said: “There is the speed protocol that exist in North Yorkshire, where people should report it and then what should happen is measurement device goes out and measures if there actually is a problem. Hopefully that would result, if the was found to be a problem, in some of the vans going out.

“I have the same kind of feel that people in the communities are getting, that I would like to see some of the speed vans in our built-up areas, 30mph zones, but I also see the serious and fatal accidents that happen in the A64 and we do have a responsibility to try and stop them and very often they are happening because of excess speed.”