THE TWO controversial speed camera sites along Marlow Hill in High Wycombe have raised a staggering £1,215,720 in four years, the Bucks Free Press can reveal today.

More than 21,000 motorists have been hit with speeding tickets along the notorious stretch between November 2002 and December 2006.

The figures were finally made public this week after the Free Press won a battle that ended almost two years of solid campaigning.

The Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership was forced to hand over these details after steadfastly refusing our requests which dated back to April 2005.

The partnership was originally backed by the Information Commissioner, which agreed the figures should not be revealed.

But we took the commissioner to appeal - and had his decision over-turned last month by the Information Tribunal.

The TVSRP was given 20 days to comply with our request or seek leave to appeal on a point of law in the High Court.

And, on Monday, it finally sent the paper the combined figures for the uphill and downhill mobile camera sites. Separate figures for the two cameras are not revealed.

The safety partnership had always refused to give the figures on the grounds it would compromise safety by allowing motorists to work out enforcement levels on the hill.

But this week, TVSRP said it was "happy" to release the combined data as opposed to site specific information which the Free Press originally asked for.

The Leader of Wycombe District Council, Lesley Clarke, has always backed the newspaper's campaign.

She said although speeding was an offence, the amount of money raised at the sites was staggering.

She said: "I can't understand why these sort of figures are not made available all the time.

"What was all the fuss about?

"Are motorists paying for all the bells and whistles that the Government wants on the roads?

"They don't say how many times a week they enforced the site - did they know they had to bring in a certain amount in revenue and they thought they weren't going to hit the target?"

If the mobile cameras had been at the sites all the time for the last four years, the 21,706 motorists given Fixed Penalty Notices would mean 14 were caught every day.

Mike Race, 70, who lives in Deeds Grove, High Wycombe, was given a ticket going up and down the hill within 15 minutes of each other.

After being told of the figures this week, he said: "That is obscene.

"It's a huge piggy-bank for them, it really is.

"I had to pay £120 and my insurance went up as a result, and will stay high for the next two years.

"No wonder they didn't want to divulge that information."

Some of the money raised by fixed penalty notices goes to central Government, while the remainder can be spent on improving road safety measures in the Thames Valley region.

But these schemes have to be justified on the grounds of road safety .

From April, the county council will become the senior partner in the TVSRP and will receive a lump sum from Government which can be used to install more cameras or other safety measures.

And the Free Press can reveal that the speed limit on the uphill stretch all the way to Handy Cross will change to 40mph within the next month.

As the paper went to press, it was not clear exactly where the £1.2million had gone.