Drivers beware: Wigan Pier speed camera back weeks after sabotage
and live on Freeview channel 276
This week the safety device on Wallgate, next to Wigan Pier, was reinstated following a vandal attack on its predecessor at the end of last year.
Already the device filmed on CCTV being disabled by a man wielding an angle grinder on Spring Road, Orrell, around the same time, has been reinstated.
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Hide AdCameras on Whelley and Warrington Road more recently came under attack and they too will eventually have replacements, angry transport chiefs saying that the work will cost the taxpayer £100,000.
One man was arrested after the Warrington Road incident on January 6 on suspicion of criminal damage.
The 58-year-old – not a 67-year-old as initially reported by police – remains on bail as investigations and officers confirmed today that no further arrests had been in connection with that incident or the three other crimes.
In the case of the Whelley incident, the felled camera pole collapsed into the main road, a hazard worsened by the fact it is near the brow of a hill and there were wintry conditions at the time.
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Hide AdWhat some seem to regard as heroic, anti-establishment vigilantism has come under severe attack from both the authorities and residents saying that lives are being put at risk by incidents like the one in Whelley as does the removal of devices designed to protect other road users from people who dangerously break the speed limit.
Police say that 27 per cent of fatal collisions in this country were caused by speeding in 2022, with many more seriously injured for the same reason.