RESIDENTS policing their own community is the stuff of controversy. The liberalists (that’s with a small ‘l’) will no doubt bang on about Big Brother signing up members of the proletariat to help bolster the institution.

However, I think I may be at the front of the queue. Give me a high-viz jacket and a mobile roadside sign please and I’ll go out there nabbing the dark forces.

This has all sprung out of a speeding clampdown in Brimmers Hill at Widmer End, which isn’t too far from where I live. A total of 27 drivers were clocked breaking the 30mph limit in two hours.

Now an organisation with a name that struggles to get off your tongue – the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership – has come up with a grand plan.

It’s a community speedwatch programme and, to put it in a nutshell, they want residents to shop speeding drivers.

They’ll give you all the paraphernalia and you can boldly go to join the fight against mad motorists.

Two residents dressed in bright yellow jackets with a mobile warning sign nearby will clock drivers on a palm-held device. An instant read out is logged by the Thames Valley Speedwatch database and then … the driver gets a warning letter.

Not a fine, you understand, but just a slap on the wrist. Still at least you’ll know big Brother is watching you.

So really you’re just putting the frighteners on them.

Chief Supt Paul Tinnion, Bucks BCU Commander said: “Speeding is one of the most complained about problems in Buckinghamshire.”

But we have a strange paradox here. Of those 27 drivers nabbed in Widmer End, most of them lived locally.

In other words we’re messing on our own doorsteps while at the same time complaining about the speeding drivers in our area.

Of course like any well programmed urban resident I get all huffy at speeding drivers down our road.

It’s a residential area, but is often used as a bit of a rat run and the cars whizz up and down it without any thought about meandering kids and old ladies crossing the road.

So give me my jacket, a sign and one of those speed palm thingies and I’ll be out there nicking the swines. Poacher turned gamekeeper, that’ll be me.

Or will it?

You see I’m not sure how carefully this has been thought through. If the large majority of speeding drivers are local do you really want to book ‘em?

Shopping your next door neighbour for speeding might not do a lot for community relations.

You will end up being vilified and isolated. And even worse, you won’t get an invitation to the summer barbeques anymore.