YOUR news item (Page 5 March 21) concerning traffic calming in Chillaton was immediately a cause for both salutation and dismay.
In these fast changing times, to have public office held by a man of principle — Ted Clifford, who in the circumstance took the honourable course and resigned his office, is immediately worthy of note; meriting the attention of all electors. Dismay occasioned by his no longer serving the local community as a parish councillor.
Whilst wholeheartedly in agreement with the necessity for some means of attaining compliance, or realistically near compliance, with the mandatory limit currently in force, it is interesting to note that the chairman of the ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) Traffic Committee recently made the point that it would be an unachievable target to rigidly enforce 30mph limits at all times in all places, given the current undermanning levels coupled with budgetary constraints, and that speeds up to 35mph may have to be seen as acceptable in most circumstances.
The currently agreed parish council scheme of some 11 hummocks makes sledgehammer magnitude for the cracking of a Maytime nut!
Perhaps some doctrinaire policy dictates in X length of road Y number of hummocks must be placed, without due regard to any factors relative or particular.
If, in this location, say an arbitrary five hummocks would achieve the desired result, some financial relief must surely accrue to hard-pressed budgets be they county, district or parish.
May good sense and wise counsel prevail when the now 'parish council approved scheme' reaches the next rung of the ladder in June. Remember Whitchurch!
Capt J R Tattersall
Green Cross
Chillaton