Three new digital speed cameras are to be installed in Norwich in the coming weeks, it has emerged.

Norfolk's network of road safety cameras is being upgraded with the county's 26 fixed sites, which include average speed cameras, being converted to digital cameras, which can be installed forward or rear facing to approaching traffic.

As part of the project, which is due to be completed by the end of January next year, there will be five new £20,000 plus cameras installed at five new fixed sites in the county with three in Norwich - at Barrett Road, Colman Road and Riverside Road - one in Rackheath and another in King's Lynn.

The new cameras are yet to go in at any of the five new fixed sites although speed cameras at Taverham and Framingham Earl are among those old cameras that have already been upgraded.

The project comes at a time when police budgets are becoming increasingly reduced through government cuts and just weeks after Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner Olly Martins suggested that turning on M1 speed cameras permanently could help bolster the force's coffers.

But road safety chiefs in the county insist the work has been self funded through surplus revenue generated from speed awareness courses which are ploughed into road safety.

The Truvelo speed camera, known as D-Cam, does not require film and can either store up to 100,000 digital photos or send the photos in real-time via an ADSL/3G connection to a back office in just a matter of seconds for processing.

One of the main advantages of the forward facing cameras, is that the photos which are taken also depicts the driver of the vehicle at the time of the speeding offence.

Road safety chiefs in the county say the project, which they say has been funded through surplus cash generated from motorists who have paid to take part in speed awareness courses, will help make Norfolk's roads even safer.

Anne Pointin, safety camera team manager for Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies, said: 'I think its really positive for Norfolk.

'I think really that despite certain areas of the press and media thinking of it as a cash cow it isn't. It's about keeping the roads safe.'

Chief Inspector Chris Spinks, head of roads policing in Norfolk and Suffolk, said the new cameras were 'much more effective and much more efficient'.

He said one of the biggest benefits of the new cameras for police was the ability to now identify the driver of the vehicle which they could not do previously.

But a spokesman for Safe Speed, a campaign group which opposes speed cameras and insists you cannot measure speed in miles per hour, said they thought the installation of these new cameras was 'disturbing' and could increase 'paranoia' with flashes not as obvious as the old style cameras.

The spokesman said road safety should not just be about speed and 'people concentrating on their dashboards' because staying safe on the road was dependant on so many other factors, like good observation and 'making sure you have the space around you for your mistakes and those of those around you.'