A VAN has gone on the road carrying camera equipment to snap speeding motorists across Worcestershire.

Drivers will have to contend with the new mobile service as well as fixed speed cameras.

The Safety Camera Partnership said the new Lastec set-up is more mobile and easier to use, which could mean more speeding motorists across West Mercia will be caught with a fine and penalty points on their licence.

"This new equipment can be either operated from within the Partnership's highly conspicuous vehicles, or externally on a tripod," said the project manager, Trevor McAvoy.

The sharp increase in camera numbers has caused public suspicion their main function was to swell Government income, rather than deter speeding drivers.

To start with, Lastec - which costs £22,000 per unit - will only be used alongside existing Autovision technology, but will gradually phase out the equipment over the next two years.

And it will then be used at a larger number of sites - 20 more will be operational across the region during the next financial year.

Currently, the Safety Camera Partnership in West Mercia only uses Autovision at sites where sensors have been dug into the road - the new system requires no more than the laser equipment and an operator.

But the partnership will not be allowed to set up Lastec anywhere - it can only operate at sites meeting certain selection criteria set out by the Department for Transport.

Speeding vehicles are detected by a laser linked to a video system, which records the vehicle's number plate, the car's speed, and the time, date and location of the offence.

But when asked Worcester residentNigel Bennett, from Salter's Close, Warndon, thought speed cameras were used - at least in part - to generate Government money.

"I think it is a money making scheme, but at the end of the day if you know where they are - like on City Walls Road - you just go slow. I've never been caught, but I keep to the limit anyway.

"I definitely don't agree with them on motorways, but I think in built up areas they are necessary," he said.

After the evaluation alongside Autovision, Lastec will be deployed on its own at a road stretch in Welland, near Upton-upon-Severn.