A VILLAGE has revived a community group aimed at tackling speeding.

Both residents and parish councillors have been concerned about speeding cars in Tiptree since the easing of lockdown.

Tiptree parish councillor Rhys Smithson had brought up the issue of speeding at a council meeting earlier this year, where a near-miss incident on West End Road was discussed.

This was when councillors debated the feasibility of reviving the Speedwatch group.

The original Tiptree Speedwatch Group was disbanded “some four or five years ago” after running out of steam.

Rob Williams, Tiptree Parish Council clerk, said: “There have been concerns in the village for some time about traffic speeds, primarily along the main road of Tiptree which is Maldon towards Colchester, but also along the back road out to Mersea.

“So those two major routes have traffic especially in the later hours of the evening where traffic definitely exceeds the speed limit.

“We’re just trying to ensure that is maintained at a safer speed. So we’ve been talking to the police about this. The police have been working with us on this, and we’ve recently had them run a couple speed checks for us.”

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These speed checks were conducted during the middle of the day when, Rob says, people would expect there to be less incidents.

However, the results of the latest speed checks carried out in the end of November showed six drivers out of 300 cars had received verbal warnings.

There were also two traffic offence reports and one arrest was made.

A further arrest was made after the police were patrolling through the village.

“So you can see that there is an issue they were able to pick up on and that’s the point behind this,” Rob added.

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Mr Smithson was made Speedwatch co-ordinator after volunteering to take the newly-revived group on.

He has said the village “desperately needs it”.

Mr Smithson arranged the first meeting and training session which was hosted earlier this month.

In a week’s time the newly-formed Speedwatch Group made up of about 20 volunteers will take to the streets for its first speed checks.