A bereaved mother will lead a protest today against a decision to axe speed cameras.

Claire Brixey's son Ashley, 20, was killed in a crash in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire, in 2004 when the car in which he was a passenger landed upside down in a swimming pool after the driver lost control.

Ms Brixey, who lives in Standerwick on the Wiltshire/Somerset border, has been a road safety campaigner since the crash.

In the protest today in Trowbridge, she will urge Wiltshire Council to reverse a decision to end a road safety partnership scheme and switch off its fixed speed cameras.

Ms Brixey said: "I cannot just stand by while the council puts an axe to vital road safety services that save so many young lives here each year.

They need to know how appalled local communities are about this. Most people fully support cameras and feel safer with them turned on.

"When I heard in the news the Government saying they were ending a 'war on motorists', I thought that all they were doing was enabling people to break the law and endanger lives by speeding.

"What about people's rights to use local streets safely? What about people's right to life? The Government should be prioritising saving lives on our roads not accumulating deaths. The cost of a speed camera does not compare to the cost of a life."

Ellen Booth, campaigns officer for road safety charity Brake, said: "Increasingly, decisions being made on speed cameras are more about politics and less about facts.

"The fact is that speed cameras reduce speeding and save lives."

Fixed speed cameras in Swindon were turned off on July 31 and it was announced earlier this month that the Wiltshire and Swindon Camera Safety Partnership - made up of Wiltshire Council, Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire Police - would close.

The partnership said the decision had been taken following "a substantial cut of 27% in revenue from the Department of Transport to local authorities".

When announcing the closure, the partnership's chairman, Assistant Chief Constable Patrick Geenty, said: "Drivers should not think it is now safe for them to break the law and I want to emphasise that the police will continue to vigorously enforce speed limits across the county and promote safe driving."