A DEVICE to measure the speed of passing vehicles bought by three parish councils has recorded motorists travelling at up to 90mph along a Somerset road.

Burnham Without Parish Council, Mark Parish Council and East Huntspill Parish Council teamed up to buy the £3,000 speed indication device (SID) last year following complaints from residents that vehicles are travelling too fast through Mark Causeway towards Watchfield on the B3129.

The SID has been recording the number of vehicles and speed of traffic in different locations across the three parishes over the last few months and the councils say they hope it will encourage people to reduce their speed.

Alistair Gordon, chairman of Burnham Without Parish Council, said: “We are not using this speedometer to catch drivers in the act, we are using it to try and make drivers aware of the speed they are travelling.

“We have seen there have been a lot of vehicles speeding through Watchfield over the last few years and we wanted to do something.

“We had the speedometer up in Watchfield last month and saw some people going at very high speeds of around 80 to 90mph.

“Speeding is a big concern in our local community and we will continue to use the speedometer to monitor trends and see how fast vehicles are going through Huntspill our parish.”

Mr Gordon said several other locations along the B3129 are available for the device and the council are pressing Somerset County Council to allow them to monitor a stretch of road from the A38 to Isleport Business Park in Highbridge.

Gordon Boyer, chairman for East Huntspill Parish Council, which has had the SID for the last month, said it has been a useful tool for the council to monitor traffic. He said he will be putting the device on New Road outside East Huntspill School later this week.

“East Huntspill Parish Council came up with the idea of buying a speedometer two years ago as we had a lot of complaints from people about speeding in the village,” Gordon said. “We teamed up with Mark Parish Council and Burnham Without Parish Council to share the cost of the speedometer and each council has the machine on a monthly basis.

“We have continued to monitor traffic and know that around 50 per cent of drivers exceed the 30mph speed limit and 20 per cent exceed speeds of 40mph.

“We have been putting the speedometer at three different locations in East Huntspill to monitor traffic speeds so we can see what we can do about speeding in our area. We always receive complaints from residents about speeding and this is the only thing we can do without breaking the law.”