A COMMUNITY police officer has insisted motorists are slowing down in a controversial 20 miles per hour (mph) speed limit trial, despite claims that it is not working.

East Lothian Council introduced a widespread 20mph limit in much of Dunbar last summer.

Despite suggestions that the reduced speed limit was being widely ignored, Constable Gavin Ross felt otherwise.

At a recent meeting of the town’s community and police partnership (CAPP), he said that he had been out to various locations and checked the speeds of passing vehicles.

He said he had counted 40 vehicles and “roughly half are doing the speed limit and a quarter were doing 20-25mph; of they are doing over 25mph, they were getting stopped”.

He added: “There were people doing 36mph on Queens Road.

“They have been reported to the procurator fiscal – it is almost double the speed limit.

“A lot of people are saying nobody is obeying it but the way I see it is when it first came out not that many people were reacting.

“Now, we are the best part of a year into the trial and definitely speeds have gone down.”

The 18-month trial is due to run until the end of the year.

The change in speed limit was brought in on the majority of streets to the north of the East Coast Mainline, with a similar scheme in place for much of Hallhill, south of the railway line.

PC Ross said that some people would break the speed limit regardless of what it was.

Officers have previously used life-sized cut-outs of police officers at various locations.

The pop-up officers have been used elsewhere in Scotland to encourage motorists to slow down.

PC Ross previously stressed that the pop-up officers were simply one method of tackling the problem and real-life officers would be out with pro-laser speed guns, with fines issued or drivers referred to the courts.

The trial came on the back of the town’s community council pushing for a reduced speed limit.

Its success will be reviewed at the end of the year before a decision is taken on whether or not to make it a permanent fixture.