Elstead Parish Council is interested in starting up a Community Speed Watch in the village and need volunteers to help them get it off the ground.

Community Speed Watch enables residents to get involved in monitoring traffic through their local community. It is intended to educate and inform drivers about anti-social driving and the impact and consequences of their actions.

The scheme has been operating across Surrey for a number of years and has achieved significantly positive results in changing the behaviour of motorists, reducing the threat to life, reducing the impact of anti-social driving and improving the quality of life of those most affected.

A scheme requires a minimum of six volunteers who are trained by police in the use of speed monitoring equipment, health and safety and how to manage enquiries by motorists and/or other members of the public. The scheme is to have a designated co-ordinator and deputy, responsible for the equipment and contact with the police. It will then be the responsibility for the co-ordinator to pass any information onto the rest of the team. Volunteers must be over 18 years of age.

Volunteers arrange times when they want to target anti-social driving, which normally involves monitoring vehicles for up to an hour during peak traffic periods. Vehicles identified as speeding will be recorded by volunteers on a log sheet. This is forwarded to an Administrator who will send out an advisory letter to registered keepers.

If there is a persistent problem with a particular motorist, police will target the driver of that vehicle and, if appropriate, take further action.

The volunteers will need to be registered on the new online Surrey and Sussex Community Speed Watch system and complete the online mandatory training. The Speed Watch team will then need to agree where they want it to operate within the village. There can be more than one site location but there is a criteria that needs to be met and our request/s will be sent to a road risk assessor to check and accept before it can start.

If you would like to get involved so that a Community Speed Watch can get off the ground in Elstead please contact the clerk at elsteadpc.clerk@gmail.com.