To volunteer for Community Speed Watch or for further information re time commitments, training and equipment please email info@lambourn-pc.gov.uk
Speeding Vehicles a cause for concern? Time to act. The Community spoke and the Parish Council Listened
In recent years, every public consultation event that we have undertaken has led to concerns being raised by the local community about the speed of traffic on our roads.
The Parish Council therefore registered to become part of the Community Speed Watch Scheme.
We identified ‘safe areas’ for these checks to be undertaken by members of the community and offered the online training programme (facilitated by Thames Police) for anyone within the Parish that wanted to tackle the problem by active intervention to reduce speeding on our roads.
Sadly, this scheme, to date has had a pretty poor take-up – a surprise given the overwhelming number of comments and feedback received re the constant problem of traffic speeding through the villages.
However, there has been one exception, where in Lambourn Woodlands, a small team have taken up the mantle, undertaken the training (which is not difficult) and committed their time to make a difference.
And it works…….
On a regular basis, (17 occasions since the scheme started) three individuals from the Woodlands, have based themselves in one of the agreed designated safe places, donned their Hi Vis and together operated the handheld speed gun, recording vehicles as they travel along the Ramsbury Road.
They meet for an hour at a time, (a time agreed to suit the volunteers) and record the speed of the cars, the make and colour of the vehicles and the registration numbers.
The advantages of doing it in threes, is that you can share the recording tasks amongst you i.e. one of you recording the speed, the other two splitting the task of colour, make and registration of the vehicle.
When the Woodlands Group first initiated the scheme, they regularly recorded vehicles travelling more than the speed limit for Ramsbury Road, with some cars travelling at 60mph in the designated 40mph zone.
This issue had obviously been a cause for concern for residents as there are no pavements or safe crossing points, and no street lighting. The road is used by horses, dog walkers, cyclists and pedestrians on a regular basis. Alongside a wealth of cars, motorbikes, and large transport lorries.
In recent months they have seen and recorded less speeding on this road, and the last time the team were active, they recorded no one speeding at all!
We believe that local motorists are being educated by this scheme being in place and their awareness of the speed limit heightened.
But we still have a problem….
This initiative is currently only being undertaken on a regular basis in the Woodlands, there has been a marked lack of take up in other parts of the Parish, despite offers of assistance from the Woodlands Group.
If we want this scheme to continue then we need more volunteers, members of the community willing to step-up and challenge these speeding drivers, to start educating motorists that it is not ok to speed through our villages and there can be consequences should they choose to drive dangerously.
The Parish Council, at this time feel, that if we cannot generate more volunteers across the Parish, then we will need to withdraw from the scheme.
For further information re time commitments, the training, equipment please email info@lambourn-pc.gov.uk
To put a stop to this problem, become part of the solution and Volunteer!
