Villagers could soon be armed with speed guns to help trap drivers in a hurry.

Members of East Sussex County Council are tomorrow being asked to commit £55,000 to pay half the cost of hand-held laser speed guns for residents. The plan to extend the community speed watch scheme follows a successful three-month trial in Ringmer, near Lewes.

Under the scheme, volunteers have been recording registration numbers and passing details to police who have sent more than 300 warning letters or noted persistent speeders for prosecution.

Thirty residents in Ringmer have been trained to use the on-loan £2,500 laser gun and volunteers include an actor, an architect and a retired builder.

They wear fluorescent jackets and man the speed gun in threes for an hour a day at one of 12 points around the village to clock motorists exceeding 30mph.

The volunteers, members of Ringmer Against Drivers Acting Recklessly (Radar), have been highly visible and police hope their presence alone has made drivers slow down.

Radar co-chairman Graham Davis said: "Of the 300-plus warning letters sent out, slightly more than ten per cent went to local residents - proving that most offenders are from outside Ringmer.

"We've been told by the lollipop lady outside the village school that things are much better now and although there is no hard evidence at this stage, we believe it has been a success.

"We are not vigilantes trying to catch speeding drivers.

"We simply want people to respect the 30mph limit so that people can ride their bicycles and push their prams safely."

Councils across the country have been inquiring about the scheme and Radar has put in an application to the council for funding to allow a speed gun to be permanently bought for the village.

A force spokesman said Ringmer had not suffered a large number of accidents, with three slight-injury crashes in the three years up to the end of 2002 but speeding in East Sussex villages has been a problem.

During the past two years all villages with the national standard 60mph speed limit have been reviewed and 13 of these now have 30 or 40mph limits as a result.

Now all the villages with 40mph limits are under scrutiny to see whether they should come down to 30mph.

Cabinet members will tomorrow learn that the second phase of the village speed limit review is now under way and further measures to reduce speed will be scrutinised.

A speed camera is being installed on pedestrian islands in busy Kings Drive, Eastbourne, west of Kings Avenue.

Monday September 22, 2003