MERSEYSIDE’S speed camera network could be switched off to avoid cash strapped councils being forced to pay for an expensive upgrade.

Last year the coalition government slashed £38m from the national road safety budget which equated to a cut of around £400,000 in Merseyside.

The network has been kept afloat by using previously built up reserves and cash generated by sending drivers on speed awareness and red light courses after motoring infringements.

A report warns that the old fashioned film stock the cameras use is reaching the end of its useful life, and without a long term deal to introduce digital technology the network faces being switched off in 2013.

The Merseyside strategic transport committee will meet tomorrow to make a decision.

A report to the committee, which does not include financial figures, warns that the camera network is currently being funded on a year by year basis, but that this can only continue until 2013.

“If camera enforcement is to continue we have to look at modernising our stock and embracing digital cameras,” road safety partnership manager Dave Foulkes wrote in a report to the committee.

The road safety partnership is run by Merseyside’s councils and the police force.

He said that manufactuers offer a number of options to pay for new cameras including leasing or lease to buy schemes.

Such schemes are cheaper if agreements are set up for at least three or five years minimum, Mr Foulkes said in his report.