WITH more than 200 motorists caught by police committing offences in just over an hour in Newton Abbot, the local Community SpeedWatch team is delighted at the outcome of their campaigning.

It follows work carried out by Devon and Cornwall’s roads policing teams on the edge of Newton Abbot this week.

The town’s community Speed Watch had reported that there was excessive car and motorcycle speeding on St Marychurch Road.

Officers from Devon and Cornwall Police went to assess the situation.

An officer from the Devon and Cornwall Roads Policing Team tweeted: ‘Today, I followed up on reports from a (Newton Abbot) Community SpeedWatch group of excessive motorcycle speeding on St Marychurch Rd, Newton Abbot (30mph).’

A total of 202 total offences were recorded in 85 minutes of enforcement.

Top speeds were recorded of 65, 62, and 61mph.

It is at the same site at the junction of Aller Brake Road and St Marychurch Road where locals have often felt that vehicles travelling towards the town centre in Newton Abbot were often breaking the speed limit.

In a similar operation back in February, 30 motorists in a two hour period were caught speeding in Newton Abbot. It followed an operation launched by Community Speed Watch after locals were concerned about the speed of vehicles in the area.

Newton Abbot Police Advocate, Cllr Mike Joyce, said this was a vindication of the Community Speed Watch group’s vigilance.

‘This justifies all the work the members of our Speed Watch team have put in,’ he said.

‘This vindicates all the work put in by ourselves as Speed Watch and the Vision Zero campaign to cut road deaths to nil.

“I hope motorists will now start to take notice.

‘There is no excuse for speeding,’ added Cllr Joyce.

Again in the past week the Newton Abbot SpeedWatch team were out on duty on Torquay Road. Between 7pm and 8pm they recorded 514 passing vehicles with 18 of them over the speed limit of 30mph.

The SpeedWatch findings were:

36 mph – 5

37 mph – 2

38 mph – 1

39 mph – 6

40 mph – 1

41 mph – 2

43 mph – 1

One Twitter user remarked: ‘Good old money making exercise marketed as making roads safer.’

However, another responded: ‘I think you’ll find it’s “as described” and is more of a road safety initiative.

‘A fatal road traffic collision costs around £2.3 Million, excluding the unmeasurable cost of losing a loved one.

‘With this in mind, I’d call it a money saving exercise (not forgetting the preservation of life benefits).’