According to the BBC, the CCTV car costs £14,000 to run and issued 364 fines last year, generating £10,828.

Councillor Robert Excell told the BBC: ‘The mayor has indicated to me that is now time to get rid of the vehicle,’ he said.

‘It is losing money and it also became very unpopular.’

‘People were thinking more about the camera than about what they were doing on the road,’ he added.

However, the announcement of the plans to get rid of the car, which was introduced after several near misses involving pupils at schools in the resort, not been welcomed by local schools.

Malcolm Wright, head teacher of the town’s Hayes School, told the BBC: ‘No amount of money is going to bring back a child if they are run over in the road.’

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has previously stated that he wanted to see the back of camera cars, along with unfair parking rules, as part of an end to the ‘war on motorists’.

Last year saw the Government announce that it is looking to clamp down on councils’ use of CCTV and “spy cars” that fine motorists for parking.

According to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, such cameras are being used unfairly, turning drivers into “cash cows”, with nearly a million fines having been issued using "spy cars" and ten million with pictures from static cameras over the last five years.