Safer Neighbourhood update, plus facts about lorries on country lanes.

A way to avoid this!

A few brave souls turned out on a very cold Tuesday evening to attend the West Babergh Safer Neighbourhood Priority Setting Meeting in Bildeston last week.

The meeting agreed that priorities for the Team for the next two months will be combatting anti-social behaviour issues in Long Melford,  and also mounting additional patrols to pre-empt further break-ins in the Hitcham and Bildeston area. Additional police presence in Cockfield , requested at the last meeting after the oil tank theft at the school, appears to have been successful since no further problems have been experienced.

Advice was given, and help offered, by the Bildeston Speedwatch Team to other parishes wishing to reduce speeding through their communities.

A Hitcham resident raised a question with regard to Designated Lorry Routes.  Was it true, he asked, that it was possible to report heavy lorries that do not keep to these permitted routes through Suffolk?

I have to say that I had no idea, but at the meeting I said that I would guess, that there was probably no legal sanction available to Trading Standards to prevent such activity by lorry drivers. Sergeant Horton from the police agreed.

On Friday I was able to get hold of a contact at Suffolk County Council to find out the facts about this.  

Responsibility in this area actually lies with the Environmental and Transport Department, rather than Trading Standards who oversee Lorry Watch schemes.

It turns out that the County Council has no legal powers to prosecute lorry-drivers who stray off their designated routes.  However there is actually still good reason to submit a form to report heavy vehicles that use unsuitable country lanes, since a letter from the County Council to the driver's boss is often enough to put an end to the problem, at least for a while.

It is important if you do make a report however to note not just the registration number of the vehicle, but also the name of the haulier.  Since no legal sanctions are available the County Council do not have the right to ask the DVLA for the identity of the owner of the vehicle.  If however you manage to make a note of both these pieces of evidence a letter can be written to the haulier requesting that lorries stick to designated routes unless they have legitimate business in the area.

A map showing designated lorry routes through Suffolk can be found here and the form that you can use to report this and other heavy lorry related problems is here.

Safer Neighbourhood Team Meetings are held bi-monthly in West Babergh. These are meetings organised by the police at which members of the public can express concerns to the police and other partners about community safety issues in their communities.  The next meeting will be held in Glemsford on 19th March at 6 p.m.