SPEEDING motorists, drones and litter bugs in the national park are high on the agenda for Helensburgh and Lomond’s officers, the area’s police chief has said.
But Inspector Roddy MacNeill added that efforts to combat speeding issues in the area through police programmes may come up against obstacles.
Addressing a meeting of Helensburgh and Lomond Community Planning Group on Thursday, May 9, the inspector said he had an “endless” list of speeding hotspots in the area.
In March it was reported that motorists were driving through Cardross at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, with village resident Ken Chapman describing it as ‘the Cardross Grand Prix’.
That, though, is not all that faces officers around the area as summer draws closer and new challenges keep coming.
Inspector MacNeill said: “There has been a real upsurge in the use of drones – they are the new Scalextric.
“These areas have no fly zones and there is actually very strict legislation for the use of them anywhere. So we will be working on that.
“Operation Ironworks [the annual campaign against anti-social behaviour in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, involving the police, park authority and other agencies] has started again at Arrochar and West Loch Lomond. We are taking a multi-agency approach and looking for money to come from the National Park Authority so that we can expand it.
“The bank holiday weekend brought us to a standstill in Luss, but that’s the nature of the beast. Hopefully a new traffic plan will be implemented in the village by this time next year.
“In terms of speeding locations, I have an endless list of these, which is getting longer and longer.
“We have more officers being trained in using the laser to detect this, and the same has been done with our colleagues at Dumbarton.
“Inspector Gillian Gardner [head of road policing in Argyll and West Dunbartonshire] is aware of the problem and helping us as much as she can.
“We have the speed detection van to attend at Cardross and Arrochar, but it is only deployed through crash statistics.
“There can be speeding issues, but if there are no actual accidents it is difficult.
“Rosneath and Cardross have both asked about Speedwatch, but there is a bit of money involved in this. You need to buy your own equipment and you can’t really pull people up and get them to court – it is more of a presence.
“We were out this morning [of the meeting] with speed guns. These are demand-driven at the moment.”
Inspector MacNeill also revealed that the monitoring of Hermitage Park is also about to get more intense.
He added: “We have a meeting with Friends of Hermitage Park next week to try and get a bit more attention on the park.
“It is getting quite popular with youths gathering in it and we have a place in place to be there as much as we possibly can.
“We are still trying to get to as many community council meetings as we can. Resources are what they are and sometimes demand beats us, but we do try to get to as many as possible.
“We continue to be very busy on a daily basis.”
Drones, drones, drones even the police in this area are demonising quadcopters (not drones) this is getting to be quite the fashion statement to bash users of these devices. Media frenzy on this subject will always gather attention !