The Wiltshire borough's Tory-run council has become the first in Britain to abolish the cameras after it refused to pay the £320,000-a-year cost of maintaining them.

Peter Greenhalgh, the councillor in charge of highways, claimed that the cameras were "a blatant tax on motorists". He said that, instead, the money would be spent on road safety projects that save lives, rather than fill Treasury coffers. Opponents of the move have told the council that it will have "blood on its hands" when the first person is killed by a speeding driver.

Wiltshire Constabulary will use mobile cameras and handheld radar guns to monitor drivers' speeds in the town.

Swindon, home to a Honda car factory, would be a boy racers' idea of heaven if it were not for the cameras. The town is crisscrossed by dual carriageways and roundabouts, and young drivers of souped-up "hot hatches" regularly gather for high-speed cruises and "burn-ups".

The decision to remove the cameras from Swindon will be closely monitored by road safety and motoring organisations. Edmund King, the president of the AA, said: "It is fine to remove cameras if they are replaced by cops in cars and interactive slow-down signs. However, we do not want to see a road safety void in Swindon. Saving lives on the road is more important than party political wrangles over camera funding. "

Brake, the national road safety charity, described the decision as "a very dangerous experiment with people's lives". Jane Whittam, its spokeswoman, said: "Speed cameras are an important