Ministers at the Department of Transport are being asked to allow the installation of two fixed speed cameras in South Lakeland.

The A590 at Millside, between Kendal and the Grange-over-Sands roundabout, and the A591 at Ings, near Windermere, look set to get the controversial cameras following recommendations to ministers from the Cumbria Safety Camera Partnership.

The CSCP is also asking for two other cameras in Cumbria - at Salt House Road, Barrow, and on the A595 at Common End, between Whitehaven and Workington.

The CSCP is a partnership of Cumbria police, the Highways Authority and Cumbria Magistrates Court Service. It is charged with the responsibility of reducing the number of deaths and serious accidents on the county's roads. Assuming the DoT gives the go-ahead, the fixed speed cameras will operate alongside the mobile speed camera units currently used by Cumbria police.

Money earned from the £60 fines handed out to speeding motorists caught on camera will be ring-fenced and can only be spent on more cameras or on the CSCP operation itself any excess will be taken back by central government.

Communities around the proposed camera sites are due to be consulted before a final decision on installation is made, but the Government considers speed the greatest danger on the roads and speed cameras the best method of saving lives. As the recent bulging post bags of The Westmorland Gazette letters pages prove, the subject provokes strong feelings both for and against speed cameras.

Not everyone agrees with the Government's assessment of the impact of speed cameras on road safety.

There is even a vigilante group calling itself Motorists Against Detection (MAD), which is dedicated to damaging and decommissioning speed cameras. The group claims to have destroyed more than 600 speed cameras nationwide.

The Association of British Drivers campaigns for better driving and "realistic speed limits" and against "the abuse of speed cameras".

Its Cumbria spokesman, John Thornley, told the Gazette: "I am of course very disappointed to hear of the decision by CSCP to apply for more speed cameras, especially in spite of such clear opposition.

"Fatalities actually rose sharply by around 12 per cent during the first year of mobile camera operations in Cumbria. They may claim that this dreadful performance is a statistical blip, but it is actually in line with the performance of other countys that are operating speed cameras. Taken together this is not a blip' but a very worrying trend.

"There is no credible evidence to support the notion that speed cameras save lives, so the last thing we should be doing is introducing more of them."