A volunteer community speed watch group is to be set up in Falmouth to tackle the scourge of drivers going too fast on the roads.

At a meeting of Falmouth Town Council on Monday night (June 13), Cllr Dean Evans proposed that a group should be formed in the town in conjunction with the Devon and Cornwall police roads policing team.

Cllr Dean nominated himself to liaise with the roads team to recruit, train and deploy volunteers to address speeding issues within the town. Problems with speeding have been reported round Falmouth cemetery, Point, Trescobeas Road and Bickland Water Road.

Falmouth Packet: Cllr Dean EvansCllr Dean Evans

Cllr Dean Evans

He told fellow councillors: "Tackling those that repeatedly drive at excessive speeds is one of the ways by which the D&C police team aim to meet their objective, Vision Zero SW to reduce the number of road fatalities by 50 per cent by 2030 and to zero by 2040.

"There are around 60 to 65 road deaths each year in Cornwall, and there have been 24 so far this year."

He said Speeding Kills and Devon and Cornwall Police are recruiting additional resources to address speeding, with additional speed detection officers, additional equipment such as the new cameras at Longdowns, promoting Operation Snap, the processing of dash cam and bike camera video as evidence of driving offences, and bringing community speed watch within the roads policing team.

Community speed watch is a scheme to allow volunteers to monitor the speed of passing vehicles using a hand-speed monitor. The volunteers record the details which are exceeding the speed limit by around ten per cent.

These details are passed onto the police who will issue a letter to the vehicle owner, advising them of the dangers of speeding and reminding them of the law. If three letters are issued to the same vehicle owner, the police carry out a further investigation.

"Community speed watch is successful in reducing speeding at selected locations," said Cllr Evans. "From two to four volunteers are required for any deployment and they wear high-vis coats and are in full view of the approaching traffic.

"Deployment sites will be sites where concerns have been raised about speeding traffic and each site is risk assessed by a police officer."

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He said all volunteers undergo full training from the Speed Watch co-ordinator and are provided with reflective jackets, signs and a speed detection monitor. They are supported by a police officer and covered by the police force liability insurance.

"It is not expected that the volunteers will work a minimum or a set number of hours," said Cllr Dean. "The number of deployments will depend upon the level of concern about speeding vehicles within the community."

The council voted to support Cllr Dean's motion to set up the group. Anybody interested in volunteering should contact Cllr Dean, councillor for Boslowick, through his Facebook page.