Village Speed Guns

Villagers in South Northamptonshire look set to carry out speed enforcement using hand held laser guns as part of a pilot project.

Seven villages have been invited to take part in a pilot scheme, called Community Speed Watch.

Among the villages involved are Helmdon and Whittlebury and they attended a meeting last Thursday night, June 12, where they were given full details of the pilot scheme and how they could help in reducing speeding traffic through their villages.

The scheme has been developed by the county's Safety Camera Partnership along with Northamptonshire County Council and Northamptonshire ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England), and also has the support of Northamptonshire Police.

Sergeant Darren Elliott heads the Enforcement Team at the Safety Camera Partnership and said "We get many requests from local residents and community beat officers asking us for help because of speeding problems and we endeavour to respond to as many as we can.

"The concept of community speed watch is to involve the community more in tackling this major problem by encouraging their own local residents to pledge to stick to the speed limit in their own village and across the county.

"In return, we will supply them with the support and tools necessary to encourage slower and safer driving."

There will be two levels of action trialled: High visibility poster boards with a slow down message will be displayed through the village; there will be regular visits from the Safety Camera Team, coupled with visits by the portable electronic Speed Indicator Device (SID) which shows motorists how fast they are travelling by flashing up their speeds.

Residents will also be trained in the use of a hand-held laser speed gun and will monitor traffic passing through the village.

It is hoped that speed monitoring in these villages will start next month and the pilot will run for three months.

The Brackley Post - 20th June 2003