CAMPAIGNERS in Chitterne say a recent speed survey proves the urgent need for traffic calming measures in the village.

Residents want to see changes including a speed camera implemented to enforce the 30mph limit on the B390 in the village near Warminster. So far they say the campaign, led by Chitterne Parish Council, has not met with support from police and the county highways department.

But after a survey which reveal-ed that more than 85 per cent of drivers break the village's 30mph limit, they are hoping the authorities will have a change of heart.

For 11 days during October the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership used speed detecting strips to record 44,233 vehicles. More than 38,000 of these exceeded the 30mph limit.

Parish clerk John Brown said: "We've tried to get assistance from both the police and the highways in the past, but they've come back and said there is no problem with the road. We would hope that the police will now take account of their own measurements. Hopefully they will do another check to prove this was not a flash in the pan."

But Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership manager David Frampton said government guidelines meant it could not set up a camera in the village at the moment. He said: "The current DfT criteria for a static camera is that in the last 36-month period a minimum of eight injury collisions per kilometre length of camera site have to have occurred.

"Of these a minimum of four collisions must involve fatalities or serious injury and for a mobile site the criteria is half this figure."