You have to love kitchen cupboard speedcam men

HEROES of the month for me have to be the duo who created a pretend speed camera out of a kitchen cupboard.
Fed up with motorists rat-running through their village, Shrewton residents Antony Cull and Chris Fawcett used their ingenuity to build their own deterrent.
And it worked. People slowed down.
I particularly enjoyed reading Wiltshire Council’s po-faced response to this display of cost-effective individual initiative.
The council has a “robust” (that word again) system for dealing with speeding issues raised by local communities, its officers solemnly informed us.
“Issues should be referred to the local community area board, who will work with the local community to examine what speed control measures are appropriate for that particular road.”
Beseeching residents to “follow the approved procedure”, they said it was vital that any traffic control scheme was “effective and delivers the required result”.
Which, of course, the Shrewton neighbours' scheme was, and did. Overnight. Without any meetings, health and safety reports, consultations or lengthy deliberations. Job done. Who needs the nanny state?
At a time when we’re all being exhorted to run our own community services to save money, the council might at least have tried to sound a bit more grateful. No sense of humour, that’s their trouble.
I’d like to nominate the enterprising pair for one of the Journal’s Local Hero Awards, for making me smile.
And I hope that the official traffic monitoring exercise now under way in the area surrounding the A303 leads to some positive action.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of the authorities using number plate recognition technology to track the movements of individual vehicles – mine, or anyone else’s.
But that’s happening across the country anyway under the new vehicle tax system, whether we like it or not.
Big Brother really is watching all of us. Given the choice, I’d prefer Mr Cull and Mr Fawcett with their kitchen unit.

Elsewhere in the wonderful world of Wiltshire waffle, there’s currently what Jerry Lee Lewis might have called a whole lotta shapin’ goin’ on.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but every other news item these days seems to be inviting us to “help shape” some service or other that’s about to be smashed to smithereens.
“Have your say” is another favourite.
“Have a heart” is my response. You already know what you want to do. Almost inevitably, it involves a reduced public service, and I don’t suppose anything we say is going to make much difference.