Police, a road safety partnership and local councillors have urged drivers to slow down after revealing that two new speed cameras on the A390 through St Ann’s Chapel and Drakewalls detected over 700 offences in their first seven to 15 days of operation.

Data published by Vision Zero South West, a road safety partnership striving to completely eliminate death and serious injury on Devon and Cornwall’s roads, has listed the cameras at St Ann’s Chapel as having been activated 599 times since June 14 — with the highest recorded speed on the 30mph stretch of road being 73mph.  At Drakewalls, the new cameras have been activated 145 times since June 22, with the highest speed recorded at 47mph. The new cameras operate in both directions and can detect motorists speeding on both sides of the road.

Work to install the two sets of cameras on the A390 began in February this year, after nearly a decade of ardent campaigning from Calstock parish councillors — including John Wells, Dorothy Kirk and Ken Trapp — who remained gravely concerned for pedestrian safety following repeated incidents of speeding, including one in which a pedestrian was killed by a motorist speeding through Drakewalls in September 2021, and damage to parked vehicles.

Chair of Calstock Parish Council Jim Wakem previously set up a committee solely focused on the issue of the A390, with Cllr Kirk, also Cornwall councillor for Calstock, initially procuring £50,000 from the Caradon Community Network (a subsidiary of Cornwall Council which has now joined the Launceston network) which distributed funding for projects. This was later increased to £200,000, prompting councillors to devise a list of ideas which could be enacted to improve the parish — to which they agreed A390 safety was a priority.

The cameras were ordered by Cornwall Council’s highways contractor Cormac.

Cllr John Wells said: "The huge growth of traffic through the village in the past few years is now estimated to be between 2.5 and three million vehicles a year, and speeding is a serious concern for the local community. My overall impression is that motorists are being a lot more considerate of pedestrains with a noticeable change in traffic behaviour. The majority of people are happy that the cameras are there and believe they are having an effect, having commented to me on how much safer the road already appears to be."

Cllr Wells noted that the local speedwatch group had however still noted a small number of motorists speeding in excess of 35mph on the A390 and slowing down as they approached the cameras’ range.

Cornwall Council has confirmed that, with the speed cameras now in place, new pedestrian crossing points are set to be built to make it easier for families wishing to walk or cycle to school in the parish. Cllr Wells confirmed that this will take the form of a refuge, situated close to Delaware Pre-School or Primary Academy, with a date for this to be put in place yet to be confirmed and further safety measures also being discussed.

The bi-directional cameras are two of four newly installed and operational sets across the two counties. The other two are located on Exeter Road in Exmouth and the A385, Ashburton Road, in Totnes (funded by the Vision Zero South West Road Safety Partnership). All four sets identified a total of 3,280 speeding offences in the first seven to 15 days of operation.

Adrian Leisk, Devon and Cornwall Police’s head of road safety, has expressed his shock at this initial data. He said: "It is disappointing to see the number of vehicles that have been detected travelling at excess speed on these routes, continuing to put their own and other people’s lives at risk by failing to comply with speed limits. The success of the schemes will be measured by reduced activations as people lower their speeds. As I’ve said many times before, there is a very easy way to avoid a speeding conviction — just stick to the speed limits."