ROAD safety bosses say the public should be barred from knowing how many drivers have been caught speeding by mobile cameras on Marlow Hill, High Wycombe.

The Free Press has been inundated with complaints from motorists infuriated by the "unfair" placement of cameras on the busy A404.

But Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership refused requests for figures relating to fines and revenue raised through enforcement claiming to do so would be "detrimental to road safety".

The Free Press had applied for the figures under the Freedom of Information Act but was denied on the grounds to do so would prejudice future speed enforcement.

Dan Campsall, of TVSRP, said: "It allows people to ascertain our strategy which is detrimental to road safety. Ultimately we want the threat of enforcement to keep people driving slowly."

But angry motorist David Rowe, of Hatters Lane, High Wycombe, said if information revealed Marlow Hill was a speeding fine hotspot, then it would serve to slow traffic down.

"Why keep these details secret?" he asked.

He added: "They know exactly where they're parking that van where they can catch the most people. It's totally out of order."

Peter Keen, chairman of Princes Risborough company Hypnos, was so incensed by the siting of cameras he wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The 60-year-old said: "It's ludicrous to park a mobile camera in the gates of Wycombe Abbey just 50-yards before a 40mph limit, accelerating up a one in ten hill on a dual carriageway."

Mobile speed enforcement was approved on Marlow Hill in March 2002 due to an increase in collisions.

In the previous four years, there were four serious and 23 minor accidents enough under Government legislation to justify enforcement measures.

Defending the need for mobile cameras, John Gray, of the Department for Transport, said: "Bodies responsible for deploying cameras are only able to claim back their costs, which ensures they have no incentive to place cameras other than to improve road safety.

"The amount of money cameras generate is entirely determined by the number of drivers willing to flout the law and put themselves and other road users at risk by speeding."