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Villagers to help police tackle speeding menace

10:04am Monday 28th September 2009
By James Williams »

Villagers will join police in the fight against speeding motorists after being awarded a £1,000 grant to buy a speed camera.
Police are starting to train members of the public to help them catch speeding motorists in the town and surrounding villages, through the Speed Watch scheme.
Residents trained up to the use a camera will be able to capture the details of speeding cars, before passing them onto police.
The drivers will then be sent out letters in the post, with their details kept on file Bratton Parish Council has been worried about the number of vehicles breaking the speed limit and have now been awarded a £1,000 grant from the Westbury Area Board to buy a speed gun, to be used in the village as well as neighbouring villages of Coulston, Hawkeridge, Edington, Dilton Marsh and Heywood.

Kathleen White, who has been on Bratton Parish Council for 27 years, said: “We’re getting so many large lorries coming through here - all the traffic that comes through the village flies through.
“The main problem is along the Westbury Road either from Westbury to Devizes or visa versa.
“It can be very dangerous for pedestrians especially when they pick up speed down Melbourne Street.
“The parish council put up some signs along the Westbury Road which seemed to alleviate the problem for a while but we really need someone long term to address the problem.”
PC Nick Holt, Westbury Neighbourhood Beat Manager, said: “We are definitely going to have volunteers running Speed Watch - we already have volunteers who want to help out and this is already in operation in the north of the county.
“The £1,000 grant will also go towards high visibility jackets, batteries for the camera etc, to help us run the scheme effectively.
“It’s a matter of getting the training arranged. At the moment we can only train four people at a time, but there Is feverous activity behind the scenes to try and get this up and running.
“The idea is to highlight the problem of speeding.
“Trained volunteers will go out in groups of twos to areas we have identified as having a speeding problem.
“They will then zap cars as they come along and report any speeding vehicles to the police road policing unit who will send out letters to the offenders and keep records of those who have been caught.
“Sometimes cops will be with the volunteers and obviously in that case they can issue on the spot tickets.
“We’re also looking at doing this within Westbury town as well. We have another camera for the town but again it’s a case of training the volunteers.”