Community speed watch schemes ‘not best use of resources’

The man in charge of policing in Tayside has said that he is wary of tying up too many resources in community speed watch initiatives.

While broadly supportive of the schemes, Chief Superintendent Hamish Macpherson told Perth and Kinross Council’s community safety committee that such initiatives where local people take to their own streets to act as a deterrent to speeders had limited long-term impact.

Mr Macpherson said he believed that police resources could be better used in other ways to bring about reductions in road accidents.

“There are better ways of delegating resources financial, equipment and people to make a bigger impact,” he said.

“Currently, greater focus is being placed on the criminal activity of road users, with the aim of keeping people safe and denying criminals use of the road network.

“This has increased performance in areas such as dangerous driving, speed detection, seatbelt and mobile phone offences.”

He said, however, that if members of any community wished to set up their own speed watch scheme and identify funding, the police would support them.