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The Town of Drayton Valley has scrapped its photo radar program after putting the debate to a public vote.

“The public expressed themselves very clearly, at least the public that showed up at the polls did,” Drayton Valley Mayor Glenn McLean said Monday. “Fair enough, that’s democracy, so we acted swiftly.”

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McLean said when he was knocking on doors as part of his campaign for mayor in 2013, “the desire for photo radar is the most frequently occurring issue that people raised with me and with us. It was based on that input that council in 2014 decided to introduce photo radar.”

The program wasn’t implemented until May 2015, but soon after, public perception of the program seemed to shift dramatically.

“There may have been an obvious difference between supporting the concept and supporting the physical manifestation of enforcement. Those are two different things,” said McLean.

After town council heard vocal opinions on both sides of the issue, they took advantage of a byelection Feb. 27 to put the debate on a ballot.

Of 1,070 people who voted on the issue, 785 said they did not support the use of automatic traffic enforcement at red lights or stop signs, and 746 said they did not support the continuation of automatic enforcement of speed limits.