The most lucrative speed camera in Sussex has been dubbed a cash cow after it caught nearly 8,500 drivers in a year.

The camera on the A22 Eastbourne Road in Halland, near Lewes, snapped 8,430 speeding motorists in 2013-14 raking in £2.3 million in fines.

Critics said the camera was not serving its purpose, with the figure up on last year’s 7,126 fines and 4,902 in 2011-12.

Claire Armstrong, of anti-speed camera pressure group Safe Speed, said: “We have been calling for the removal of all automated speed cameras.

“They are not intelligent, they are not proper, they are not proportionate and there is no place for them in road safety policy.

"Speed cameras have been a flawed concept from the very beginning and they don’t catch the drivers that the police need to and stop them – we need to have well trained police officers back on the road.

“They have done nothing for road safety, but are catching hundreds of thousands of drivers of which the majority are otherwise driving safely.

“There are masses of profits being made but with no benefit to road safety.”

In 2012, the camera was criticised over a lack of consultation and claims drivers did not know it was there.

Despite the number of fines going up three-fold in the last three years, the operations manager for Sussex Safer Roads Phil Henty said the camera was an effective deterrent to drivers.

He said: “When you look at the figures, some 7,500 drivers use that road on a daily basis and for only 23 to be caught on average a day, that’s actually a fairly small number.

“Even if people are just slowing down for the camera, it is still getting them thinking about their driving behaviour.

“If a driver is doing 40mph before the camera and slows down to 30, chances are they will stay at that speed or only go back up to 35 or 36.”

But Steve Percy from the People’s Parking Protest said he did not believe the camera would slow down traffic.

He said: “It’s nothing more than a cash cow – it’s so much money and a nice little earner.”