Could you volunteer to help keep Borough roads safer?
If you can spare a few hours each month to take part in the roadside Speed Watch sessions, your local Neighbourhood Policing team would love to hear from you. Speeding is one of the factors that most affects the quality of life in communities - in road traffic collisions, and impacts on the day-to-day lives of local people.
Community Speed Watch is a scheme that enables members of the public to volunteer alongside Hampshire Constabulary to monitor the speed of traffic passing through an area and identify vehicles which exceed the speed limit. Each scheme is run by volunteers and managed and supported by their local Neighbourhood Policing team.
The local Neighbourhood Policing team are keen to reinstate a group for the Fair Oak area. Equipment and resources are available to support a new Community Speed Watch volunteer group in this location after a two-year pause. If you live locally and would be interested in volunteering some of your time to the community to help keep roads safer in Chandler’s Ford or to restart the Fair Oak team, please get in touch to apply.
There are currently two Speed Watch teams in the Borough: Chandler’s Ford and Hedge End - both run by very active and dedicated volunteers. The roads they monitor are requested by the local neighbourhood policing team or community members, because they have given cause for concern.
As a result of sessions across May 2022 alone, the two teams generated 256 first letters, and then 17 second letters for reoffenders. Five were escalated to a uniformed officer due to excessive speeds or other issues.
Volunteers use equipment that can monitor the speed of passing traffic. The volunteers collect details at the roadside of speeding vehicles and pass this onto Hampshire Police. Vehicle checks are undertaken by the police and entered onto a database. The registered keeper of the vehicle will then be sent an educational letter telling them that their vehicle was seen exceeding the speed limit and the impact their actions have on the local community. If the same registration number is logged again within two years, the registered vehicle keeper will receive a warning that, if the vehicle is seen a third time, the details will be passed to an officer to review further action.
One local ‘Speed Watcher’, who joined in Chandler’s Ford in 2015 and later became a coordinator, is now one of ten members. They said: “We work in teams of four, with weekly session results being submitted to the police. As coordinator, I enjoy interacting with the public who appreciate our actions of reducing the ever-increasing number of speeding vehicles in the parish. Recently we have been supported by Police special constables, helping with public queries, and enforcing the law where applicable".
Community Speed Watch is used throughout Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to:
- Improve the quality of life for local communities by increasing their confidence and satisfaction in the way speeding issues are dealt with
- Reduce the speed of vehicles to the speed limit
- Increase public awareness of inappropriate speed
- Reduce death and injury on roads
- Empower local people to take action on local issues
For enquiries or to request an application form, please email [email protected]