I was just walking through Alveston when I saw a police officer training volunteers to use hand held speed checkers. Has anyone seen this going on in Thornbury?

I haven't seen them, but there is a Thornbury group, according to this recent BEP report.
tinyurl.com/ybsaxkt

Personally, I wouldn't volunteer to help the local police, when they are trying to shut down the High Street kebab van,
tinyurl.com/ya4nkav
and not for the first time.
consultations.southglos.gov.uk/inovem/co...

Our mobile kebab seller is a polite, friendly gentleman - how anyone can think him a nuisance is beyond me. I've even seen our local police, on duty and in uniform, stop to buy kebabs there. We all know that the anti-social behaviour in the High Street is by people who have drunk too much, not people who are hungry. Binge drinking is a national problem, not kebab eating.

After all the revellers, who had taken over the High Street on New Year's Eve, had gone home, there were empty bottles of Stella Artois, cans of Carlsberg, and cigarette ends all over the place, plus streams of urine in more secluded spots - but amongst the other forms of litter, on the pavement and street, just one kebab box and an empty pitta bread.

It gets worse. On the evening that attention was focused on the SANE demonstration and Horizon Nuclear Power's presentation, the ridiculous Safer Stronger Communities Group, Thornbury & Alveston was determining its 3 law and order priorities for the coming quarter. Priority no. 2 was the kebab van on the A38, and was nominated without any discussion or explanation of why the evening licence holder causes a nuisance.

It's not a good time to be a Turkish, Muslim kebab seller in the Thornbury area - they don't want you in town, and they don't want you out of town either. If this bigoted vigilantism is what passes for community policing and safer, stronger communities, then I say: roll on anarchy.