HEREFORD police say plans to give speed guns to the public are premature.

Parish councils have been asked for their opinions on the initiative, which would involve training members of communities to use specialist equipment to target speeding motorists.

Some councils in the two counties have already backed the idea. Joy Clee, chairman of Kempsey Parish Council, claimed villagers would welcome the scheme.

"We receive a considerable amount of complaints about the speed of traffic going through the village. I think people in Kempsey would be prepared to do this," she said.

However, police in Herefordshire, where the scheme will be trialled before being extended to Worcestershire if successful, say it is not certain to be approved.

"This is part of an extensive consultation process which will have to be completed before we would go ahead with such a project," said Chief Inspector Shane Hancock.

"At this stage we are considering an experimental scheme specifically confined to Hereford division."

"There are still a number of issues we are working through before we could finalise arrangements for such an initiative."

The monitoring stations will be positioned at selected locations where they will record anyone speeding and report back to the police.

The police will then decide whether an area warrants a police presence or whether to target individual drivers.