ON TUESDAY it was announced that a new average speed camera would start operating along the busy A259 Marine Drive in Brighton.

Illuminated signs were put up warning drivers of the new system and the old style speed camera was deactivated with a red covering placed over the unit.

But The Argus can reveal that speeding offences are not being pursued and no drivers will be brought to book – at least for the time being.

We found this out when asking how many drivers had been caught out by the new system in the first week.

A reply issued from a Brighton and Hove City Council official to the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP) and seen by The Argus, reads: “Although the cameras are switched on we are currently not actively pursuing any offences.

“We are using the system to monitor the number of offences that we could be getting but we still have some minor tweaks to carry out on the system itself and some minor engineering measures that we need to do to ensure that all offences are caught.

“Not sure that we would want this to be public knowledge though.”

When The Argus reported on the introduction of the new system a week ago, response from readers online was broadly positive.

One commenter wrote: “These camera are much better than the old ones. You won’t get punished for going too fast momentarily, while overtaking/getting out of a situation etc.

“How hard is it to stay under the speed limit on average? It’s not hard at all.”

The SSRP said last week it hoped the cameras would encourage safer driving.

It is not known when the camera will start to be monitored and any fines issued.