Speeding priority moves forward

Following our victory at East Area committee on police speeding enforcement, I have been trying to help move forward this priority, and suggested the following action plan:

• Ask Councillors in East Area what the key problem roads are that they would like to see tackled. (For Coleridge I suggest Coleridge Road and Birdwood Road top priorities, then Rustat Road and Cherry Hinton Road).
  
• Prioritise Roads for consideration.
  
• Use speed monitoring equipment (as used in Queen Ediths Way to assess situation prior to action)
  
• Police enforcement action, backed up with local publicity, press, Speedwatch etc. over a period of time.
  
• Use speed monitoring equipment again to determine if actions have had an effect even when enforcement patrols not present.
  
• Evaluate if we have learnt anything useful for tackling this problem going forwards
  

These suggestions have now been considered by the officers Neighbourhood Action Group and they will come up with their version of the plan - we will be taking a close interest in this to ensure it reflects the priority adopted by the committee.

Surprise victory on policing speeding in East Area

Policing priorities for Abbey, Coleridge, Petersfield and Romsey were again up for discussion at the council's East Area Committee this last Thursday.

We learnt that the Speedwatch scheme which had been kicked off at the previous opportunity to set policing priorities on 15th January had only operated two sessions in the entire four-month period, only one 34-minute session of which was in Coleridge, and issued three letters to speeding motorists, only one of which was for the Coleridge Road session. For ongoing activities, only four volunteers have been trained.

This was despite the Speedwatch scheme being publicised across the ward by Conservatives and again to hotspots, as well as being publicised by Labour and apparently also by PCSOs, although I'm not sure how that was done.

The wording accepted for the priority in January was:

Speedwatch – to assist community volunteers to administer the initiative.

Whereas the alternative to which Cllr Howell tried to amend the priority but which was rejected by all other councillors present, was:

Tackle speeding on residential roads in East Area primarily through police monitoring and enforcement and also co-ordination of other activities such as Speedwatch that may help reduce problems.

Nevertheless, Cllr Howell went on to support the unamended priority, as despite deep reservations from within the Conservative team in Coleridge about the nature of the Speedwatch scheme we were happy to support a pilot of the initiative - we have an open mind to the possibilities.

As a member of the public I questionned the effectiveneness of Speedwatch during the period, wanting to know how many police patrols would have been possible had the priority been set differently, to which the sergeant, astonishingly, could not provide an answer.

Even more bizarrely the sargeant then went on to ask if I would really have wanted them not to concentrate on proper crimes like theft. While I am very sympathetic to that point, it did not make sense to me in the context - surely these are priorities set by the councillors for the local team and therefore Speedwatch was given roughly a third of the resources available for prioritisation - if this was not the case then then what is the point of the priorities? Were the police only too pleased that a priority had been selected that didn't require much effort? I don't ever remember the councillors taking this differential attention into account in their priority-setting process.

When the priorities came up for debate, Chris Howell tried for the fourth time since his election to the city council last May to get proper police action on speeding onto the priorities list. To my astonishment, and I think to that of some of the councillors too, Chris was at last successful in this mission, supported belatedly by his fellow ward councillors and Cllr Wright from Abbey, winning the vote 4-3!

The new priority is:

Tackling speeding on residential roads in East Area to include systematic evaluation of the problems and police enforcement action.

The police sergeant present when his recommended priorities for the next quarter were ammended was taken aback and wondered how they were going to achieve this. My first thought was: if you are struggling with this level of democratic involvement just you wait until we have elected police chiefs under a Conservative government! This rather makes a mockery of the Policing Pledge presented to us at the beginning of the neighbourhood policing agenda item!

When Coleridge Conservatives recently surveyed residents on how best to tackle speeding vehicles in Coleridge we found only 1.6% of respondents supporting the Speedwatch-style approach. Police patrols (as favoured by Coleridge Conservatives) and fixed speed cameras were the preferred solutions:

One of the arguments that Speedwatch proponents keep putting is that the scheme will help to identify areas that have a speeding problem. In my view this is a bogus argument and Speedwatch will only achieve a level of information equivalent to existing anecdotal evidence as the experience of Speedwatch teams is that people slow down for their setup, so they cannot gauge the natural speeds at which people are proceeding.

In contrast, the systematic speed monitoring that occured recently on Queen Edith's Way for the South Area Committee proved very effective at getting an accurate distribution of speeds over the course of the day and will improve on the anecdotal evidence we currently have. It is hoped that some of this kind of monitoring will now be possible in the East Area.

Speedwatch Latest

East Area Councillors from all parties attended a briefing meeting today about the Speedwatch scheme. There is one 'kit' available for the Cambridge Area (potentially a second next year) It appears Councillors from all three main parties (myself included) have requested that East Area should have first dibs on the new 'Speedwatch' equipment, and this has been agreed by the local community safety partnership. The police representatives outlined how the scheme works:

Prior to use, there will be a training session for volunteers.

Volunteers are responsible for using the equipment (as pictured above), and determine themselves when to monitor road speeds.

Cars passing the speedwatch monitor at more than a preset speed (36mph is the standard for 30mph roads) will cause the monitor to flash up the speed of the car. In this case the volunteer writes down the speed, number plate, car make, and colour.

The information is passed to the police. If the number plate is consistent with the car details, the police write to the registered owner pointing out that they have been seen speeding and asking them not to do it again, but obviously no legal action can be taken.

It was claimed that if the same car was noted on several occasions, then the police could potentially undertake more formal speed checks at the relevant time of day, and the County Council will also use information collected to build up a picture of speeding trouble spots, but in terms of action, that is about it.

I support using this initiative, and would like to see it tried out in Coleridge speeding trouble spots, like Coleridge Road and Birdwood Road. But I'm not about to support Labour's calls for huge numbers of additional cameras to be purchased before we know if the pilot is a success, not least because I have some significant concerns about the scheme.

Firstly, lack of cameras doesn't look like the problem - you need to find volunteers prepared to operate them, and this will take a significant time commitment if it is really going to change motorist behaviour. It is likely that there will be plenty of time to share the equipment, although it will need storing somewhere.

Then there is the quality of data obtained - I don't think the use will be controlled enough to give an objective view of the speeding problem in various areas - we really should be undertaking proper controlled reviews to determine trouble spots, and the Council can already do.

But perhaps my biggest reservation can be summed up by the reaction I've had from more than one person on the doorstep to the scheme - we shouldn't have residents policing and snooping on their neighbours, its the police's job and we pay a lot of tax towards them. The police can stop motorists immediately the offence takes place, and have the authority to issue tickets, or exercise professional judgement and discretion - it really should be down to them to police these problems.

Far too often with traffic problems like those on Hills Road bridge, cyclists without lights and antisocial speeding on residential roads, the police show little or no interest in concerted action over a period of time, just undertaking occasional operations mostly for publicity purposes. For this reason I will doubtless try to add anti-social speeding again to the list of police priorities at the next East Area committee.

That said, Speedwatch could play a role in stopping what is a real problem. The police have volunteered to talk about the Speedwatch scheme prior to the next East Area meeting on 15th January, and I would encourage any local residents who may be interested in setting up a group to come along. Abbey, Coleridge and Romsey ward Councillor's all seemed to want access to the equipment in their area, and the meeting is likely to discuss how it will be used, which might get heated. Cllr Harrison if you are reading - chill, relax, I'm sure we can all play nicely...

Request made for Speedwatch

Following my previous post, I have formally requested that Coleridge is considered as a pilot scheme for the new residents' 'Speedwatch' schemes being started by the police and County Council, specifically in the Coleridge Road and Lichfield Road area. Speeding has been raised as a key issue on these roads when we have been speaking to people on the doorstep, and I think there will be significant support from local residents.

The County Council has confirmed that my request has been received and handed over to Cambridgeshire Constabulary, who are co-ordinating such requests.