Residents are hoping for a quieter life in future, after the completion of a major traffic calming scheme.

The issue of traffic speeding through East Farleigh had long worried villagers; it was one of the prime points they wanted to address when the parish council prepared a Parish Plan back in 2009.

The trouble was that even though traffic surveys indicted that half of all drivers were exceeding the 30 limit which runs past the crossroads of Lower Road with Vicarage Lane and Station Hill, and although a quarter of drivers were doing more than 40mph, there had not been a history of serious accidents sufficient to persuade KCC Highways to take action.

So the parish has decided to go it alone. After a string of meetings with villagers and discussions with KCC cabinet members, a scheme was devised and finally implemented this week.

During a series of overnight road closures, contractors have installed a series of speed roundels on the road carriageway of Lower Road picked out alternately in red and black. There is a different coloured road surface at the crossroads and dragons' teeth markings painted on the road, along with warning arrows which it is hoped will persuade motorists to slow down.

The measures which cost the parish £70,000 to instal are reinforced by two mobile SID cameras (Speed Indicator Devices) that will be moved between seven different points in the village every eight weeks.

The SIDS cost an additional £12,000, partly paid by a grant from the village fete committee and from a personal allowance grant from County Councillor Paulina Stockell.

The parish took out a community loan to pay for the work, which it will pay back over the next 50 years at the rate of £2,400 a year.

Parish chairman Glyn Charlton said: "This really represents the completion of the last task that emerged from our parish plan.

"It is rather a unique scheme - and we have already been contacted by half a dozen other parish councils interested in what we have done."

The village opted not to go for speed bumps, partly because of the noise and partly because there is KCC requirement that they be lit at night and there was a desire not to have street lights.

Cllr Charlton said: "Although the villagers are paying for the scheme through the parish precept, we have not had to raise the precept specifically for this as we already had an allowance for highways in our budget.

"This is very much an experiment, and we shall be monitoring the results closely.

"If it works, we might consider adopting a similar scheme in other parts of the village where there is a speeding problem, such as Dean Street."

Sadly, the traffic-calming measures came too late to save East Farleigh's historic Coronation horse trough, which sits on an island at the top of Station Hill.

Two weeks ago, a car emerging from Vicarage Lane collided with another coming along Lower Road and sent it crashing into the horse trough.

Cllr Charlton said: "We will repair the trough - it is an important historical feature of the conservation area, but the mount on which it stood was destroyed and will have to be replaced."