Beach Road speed being monitored?

To be fair to individual officers, who have always seemed to me keen to assist, I think this is largely a result of the situation whereby the police are in a continuous state of re-organisation (a euphemism for cost-cutting) and responsibilities and personnel are moved around. Recently changed roles and the need for training and familiarisation for officers in those new roles only make things harder.

But I have found that our neighbourhood police team now has available to it a couple of speed indication devices and a hand-held radar speed gun.

There are, of course, complications – legal, health and safety, liability insurance issues, etc.

These machines can be used only at sites where a risk assessment has been conducted – and there’s not many of those at present, so current action is largely restricted to a few long-established routes that are well-known to most drivers.

A team of local volunteers could monitor the machines, but they have to be trained and supervised by a suitably trained police officer and the Highways Agency also has to then approve such a site before an exercise can be conducted.

I have been told that our neighbourhood police team is now in a position to add more locations to its list of approved sites. I therefore suggest that, if anyone has a concern for speeding through their neighbourhood, they contact our police station or a patrolling officer and make their concern known.

After some months of nagging on my part, during which the above information came to light, some speed checks have been done in my road in the last week or so, with surprising results and, yes, by an officer temporarily seconded to the team, supervised by a recently appointed sergeant in Bognor who has only just received the training to do the risk assessments.

John Morris

Maltravers Drive

Littlehampton