Community Speedwatch will keep roads safer – Chief Inspector Scott Richardson

This will be the first use of the scheme in Edinburgh and will be implemented through Community Councils in the South West of Edinburgh that have signed up.

Community Speedwatch is not replacing any police activity, nor is it about enforcement. The scheme is an additional layer of road safety that members of the community can be involved in.

It is designed as a community operated feedback scheme involving approved members of local communities to monitor vehicle speeds at identified sites.

All training and equipment will be provided to the volunteers, who will work in a team of three using a detection device to monitor the speeds of vehicles travelling through their local area.

The registration number of speeding vehicles is recorded. Warning letters are then sent out by the police to the registered keepers stating that their vehicle has been recorded as speeding.

Locations for monitoring speed are selected from sites suggested by the community, based on where there is most local concern about speeding traffic, or the impact of speed. Sites will be risk assessed for suitability by police, and we will provide the use of a speed detection device, high ­visibility jackets, signage and ­equipment for the collection of data. Any ongoing issues will be picked up by the police and enforcement activity undertaken.

I believe the scheme will allow communities to make a positive contribution to road safety in the area they live.

On other matters, we have seen continued cases of people being ­victims to banking frauds and, in some cases, being defrauded out of tens of thousands of pounds.

Those who are responsible use complex techniques or intimidation tactics to obtain access to your ­property or personal data and/or money.

We treat these matters with the utmost seriousness and would urge anyone with information about such incidents to contact us immediately.

Similarly we have a range of useful crime prevention advice available on our website. Please consult this and talk it over with any elderly or ­vulnerable family members, friends and neighbours.

Looking at more local issues we have recently run an operation at Westside Plaza in Wester Hailes around continued reports of anti-social behaviour and drug offences.

The week of action involved ­uniformed officers, plain clothes and roads policing. During the week of action there were 12 persons found in possession of drugs and charged, seizures of crack cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine and Valium, five people arrested on warrants, two people arrested for possession of an offensive weapon, and road ­traffic offences were detected in relation to no licences, no insurance and no MOTs. This operation will be repeated on a regular basis at various locations around the South West.

Chief Inspector Scott Richardson is area commander for South West Edinburgh.