Full News Report

12th December 2023

Community Speedwatch needs volunteers

THE speed of vehicles travelling on the roads of Morval parish has long been a bone of contention. 

Previous calls by Morval Parish Council to reduce limits, or introduce other traffic calming measures, have mostly fallen on deaf ears but councillors have now signed up for the Community Speed Watch programme. 

It means that they can record vehicle speeds in 20, 30 and 40-mph areas and, using that information, attempt to bring extra pressure on the authorities to agree to more road safety initiatives.

The council cannot issue fines but it does pass on information to the police who may write to errant drivers, explaining the potential consequences of their behaviour and encouraging them to be more speed aware.

Two parish councillors have been trained to use the specialist speed monitoring equipment and the search is now on for more volunteers to keep the scheme on the road. 

Anyone interested should, in the first instance, contact the parish clerk, Sam Pengelly: clerk@morvalparishcouncil.org.uk 

Research shows that on average 97 per cent of speeding offences (not including Community Speed Watch observations) are detected by fixed cameras. The vast majority of these are at roadside areas known to both local residents and regular commuters – and, therefore, these can have little effect in reducing speeds in other troublesome places. 

Equally relevant – and especially to rural areas where fatalities are said to be four times more likely to happen than in urban areas – any discussion about road safety and speeding has a tendency to focus on number of collision casualties reported. 

In most areas where Community Speed Watch operates, and where speeding evidently is a concern to communities, the quality-of-life issue, as well as feeling safe when using the roads recreationally, have utmost importance to the affected areas’ residents. 

That usually serves as a reminder that the problem of speeding goes well beyond quantifying its consequences with casualty statistics alone.