If you weren't looking closely, the small yellow box fitted on to a telegraph pole could cause a moment of alarm.

Normally, it could mean only one thing - a police camera waiting to catch unwitting drivers as they tip over the speed limit.

But not this time.

For the yellow box on the A272 at Cowfold, near Horsham, is made out of wood and lacks the sophisticated technology needed to capture speeding motorists on film.

Carefully handcrafted right down to the phony lens cover, no one seems to know who is behind the replica camera, which appeared over the weekend.

But people who live nearby, tired of speeding motorists, say it is helping to slow down traffic.

Although the road has a 30mph speed limit, they say many drivers ignore the restriction.

Jo Yule, 37, who has two young children, said: "I think it has made a huge difference. Most of us are delighted it has been put up so hats off to whoever was brave enough to do it.

"There is a park just across the road and if the children want to go, we have to accompany them.

"It's just nice not hearing traffic roaring down the road all the time."

Steve Mabey, 42, landlord of the Coach House pub, said he hoped the box was there to stay.

He said: "I would be very happy if it stays up. None of us knows who did it but good luck to them."

Councillor Angela Martin, of Cowfold Parish Council, said: "We have terrible trouble with speeding through the village.

"I don't know anybody who comes along that road and obeys the limit.

"Unfortunately, we can't have any speed calming devices because it's an A road and it would be a problem for the emergency services.

"If we were to pay for speed cameras, it would have to come out of the pocket of the parish council and we don't have enough."

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council said the authority would have to remove the fake camera.

He said: "We have no idea who put it there but we cannot have home-made or illegal signs on the highway.

"We are not aware that speeding has been a particular problem in that part of the village."

Emma Rogers, of the Sussex Safety Camera Partnership, said: "A home-made camera could cause problems with traffic suddenly braking if there was no sign up to warn them."