The Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership has always had a big stake in the success of speed cameras in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

It was principally set up to manage the network of speed cameras across the three counties on behalf of the respective councils and the police.

The partnership has always been zealous in its support of cameras and it is no surprise that it continues to be so. Its very existence depends on them. One suspects that it will not be too long before that existence is challenged as both Berkshire and Buckinghamshire take their own decisions about where the spending axe will fall.

We are prepared to be generous to the partnership in the row over the latest set of figures in which it is accused of misleading us over the impact of this month’s ending of camera enforcement in Oxfordshire.

No doubt it had cobbled some figures together quickly in order to facilitate media stories. When they backed the line it was taking, it was no surprise that it did not look harder to test their robustness.

In any event, it is ridiculous to suggest that you can gauge the impact of switching off the cameras within a couple of weeks of that event. The true statistical impact of this decision will not be clear for several years to come.