MORE than 5,000 drivers were found to be breaking the speed limit when travelling through Warndon Villages during two weeks in March.

Your Worcester News reported in February how councillors in the villages voted to spend £350 installing a special device on a Vehicle Activated Sign (VAS) to allow it to better measure the speeds that people travel at through the area.

Councillor Ray Morris, vice chairman of Warndon Parish Council, said speeding had been a big concern for residents in the area for around three years, especially on the roads that feed in to the main roundabouts, such as Hastings Drive, Plantation Drive and Millwood Drive — all 30mph roads.

Monday's meeting of the council heard that figures recorded by the device show that over an 11 day period in March, of the 32,817 cars the device recorded driving around the villages, 4,264 cars were found to be travelling at between 35mph and 40mph.

Almost 200 cars were recorded driving at speeds between 45mph and 50mph, and 63 cars were found to have done speeds above 50mph.

Two were recorded driving at 75mph, although Cllr Morris said he couldn't be sure if these were emergency services vehicles or not.

Cllr Morris said: "To be honest, the report showed that there aren't as many people doing speeds above 50mph as we first thought there would be, although the figures were only taken from an 11 day period, usually it would be longer.

"I live close to Hastings Drive and I've seen people doing crazy speeds along there, well in excess of the speed limit. Plantation Drive is probably the worst place for it though."

PC Alex Denny said that officers in the area will soon be coming down harder on speeders.

He said: "By the end of April, speed enforcement in the area will be done on a much more regular basis. Ideally we would like to see some traffic calming measures in the area but the focus will be heavily on speeders in the villages in the coming weeks."

The VAS machine is rotated around different roads in the villages. It lights up when drivers approach it at speeds above 30mph, but the new device means it can record what speeds people approach it at.