Plans for high street cameras over no-entry rule

Cameras could be installed at the top of a high street to catch motorists who ignore a no-entry rule.

Stone Town Council is considering a £30,000 funding pot to go towards buying automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras as part of next year's budget.

High Street, Stone, is supposed to be off limits to vehicles, although access is allowed to traders loading and unloading goods, but only if they operate outside of a period running 10:00 to 16:30.

Drivers, however, are said to flout the ban, and bollards in place at the top of the road during the day have been damaged by vehicles, town councillors heard at a meeting.

The authority has worked with Staffordshire County Council, Stafford Borough Council and Staffordshire Police in recent years in a bid to enforce the High Street vehicle ban.

Town council General Purposes Committee chair Rob Kenney said the council would be able to go "to other authorities to ask them to contribute to the ANPR".

The councillor, who put forward the budget proposal, said: "If you go down the High Street at night it is like a car park.

"In the market square, outside the library, there are cars parked, and further down going towards the takeaways.

"It's an accident waiting to happen."

Another councillor, Ian Fordham, said the safety of residents, especially children, had been an issue over several years because of drivers.

He added: "It needs sorting out before there is a serious injury or fatality."

Councillor Jill Hood, who raised the issue at the latest full Staffordshire County Council meeting, stated "we, the town council, are continually paying out for brand new bollards".

She said one driver "hit a bollard so hard that the car was embedded" on it.

"We are looking at automated number plate recognition. The town council is quite willing to put in a considerable amount of money," she said.

"But I'm told by the highways department that this is not possible, because if we pursue it and we get it, it is going to cost the county council for every town and village to put in ANPR."

She added she was hoping the county council's cabinet member for strategic highways would "look at this" and she herself had "already spoken to highways".

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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