Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice and provided the text to Daniel Harry of Democratic Services (contact details below) no later than midday on Monday 6 March 2023. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:-
· at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);
· when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.
If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chairman who will instruct those taking a recording to cease whilst you speak.
Minutes:
A public question was submitted by Cllr Chris Moorby of Craven District Council, regarding the use of speed cameras on the A65 and the A682. The question and two supporting documents were circulated to the committee prior to the meeting.
The question was as follows:
As you may be aware I have been trying to get North Yorkshire County Council and the Police to introduce speed restrictions and average or fixed speed cameras in Long Preston and along the A65 and the A682 that goes to Gisburn. The A682 was classed as the most dangerous rural road in England.
A few years ago a motorcyclist was killed in a collision at Hospital Bridge near the Almshouses at Long Preston.
Another, a few years ago, involved an HGV that couldn't stop for the pelican crossing and careered into the War Memorial, If the driver had hit the tree instead I think he would have been killed. Isn't it lucky that no one was injured.
Vehicles have crashed at the junction of the A65 and A682.
I could go on describing accidents that have occurred in the village including a car on it's roof, cars mounting the pavements and so on and so forth.
The Parish Council installed a Vehicle Activated Sign, at their own expense, last year and the data that can be retrieved from these units is amazing, it logs every vehicle.
If one looks at the data sheet I have supplied separately it will be seen that the frequency of high speeds is unacceptable in a community where many elderly, infirm and very young people who live adjacent to the A65. It suggests that many motorists, 11700 of them consider the 30mph speed limit to be optional and that there were 11700 chances of someone to be knocked down by a speeding vehicle. It also suggests that this happens roughly 165 times per day!
But, of course this is just Long Preston.
I have read in the local press, social media and just last week viewed the television coverage of the problems that the people of Cowling are facing on a daily basis. But this is not the only village in this situation.
It is very frightening indeed.
A great deal of engineering work has been carried out by North Yorkshire County Council, for which the people of Cowling are, no doubt, very grateful, but I'm afraid it hasn't cured the problem of speeding traffic.
What can be done to help the situation?
The introduction of cameras would help build a blended/multi layered approach to speed enforcement – fixed cameras, average speed cameras and mobile cameras. Unfortunately, the reliance only on mobile cameras means the strategy is a single approach, and isn't enough, despite their obvious success at the time they are deployed.
A few years ago Lancashire County Council installed average speed cameras on the A682 from Gisburn to Barrowford resulting in a tremendous fall in accidents.
At the same time the same council installed a 50mph speed limit from the Yorkshire, Lancashire border to Gisburn. They are now going to install average speed cameras on this section.
Lancashire and other County Councils can see the benefits of speed cameras. (see attached documents). If the attached paper from Lancashire County Council is studied then perhaps North Yorkshire County Council and North Yorkshire Police could see the benefits and act on them?
North Yorkshire, along with Durham are the only Counties in England that don't have a policy for fixed speed cameras I hope that will change for North Yorkshire in the near future.
I hope that you that are here today will inform your colleagues on the authority of this address and the attached documents.
The following response was provided by Allan McVeigh, Head of Network Strategy, Highways and Transportation, North Yorkshire County Council.
May I first thank Cllr Moorby for his question.
The A682 was identified as a high risk road by the Road Safety Foundation, which resulted in the award of £615,000 through the Department for Transport’s Safer Roads Fund. The criteria used to make that assessment of ‘high risk’, takes into account a wide range of criteria such as road geometry, elevation and other physical features, as well as traffic volume and the number of collisions in which people are killed or injured.
The Council used the funding to deliver a variety of road safety improvements to reduce risk along this section of the A682, including resurfacing, white lining and better road signs. Land was also purchased to remove walls, fences and trees, in order to improve visibility at junctions and extensive sections of vehicle restraint systems or crash barriers were also introduced along the route.
The detection capabilities of Vehicle Activated Signs or VAS are less accurate than other bespoke devices for measuring traffic speeds and volume, which are closely calibrated and so produce more accurate outputs; the data VAS capture though do provide for a useful approximation of traffic speeds and driver behaviour.
For completeness, in terms of the statistical analysis presented, the percentage of vehicles exceeding the 30mph speed limit should perhaps be 5% and not 9% as stated and assuming 5% is the correct figure, this equates to 1 in 19 vehicles rather than 1 in 11. It is also unclear from the data presented, how many vehicles that make up the quoted 165 ‘speeding vehicles’ each day, are travelling at speeds between 30mph and 33mph, the typical margin for error of vehicle speedometers. There is perhaps a distinction to be made between motorists driving at or around the posted speed limit and those who have a wilful disregard for road safety.
Therefore, from a traffic engineering perspective, more analysis would be required, in order to fully understand the average speed of traffic and the speeds undertaken by a dangerous minority, but based on the information provided, it appears that only 5% of traffic is actually exceeding the speed limit.
Nevertheless, the points that Cllr Moorby makes around the increased risk that speeding vehicles pose to the local community, are well made and alongside the improvements the Council introduced with the Safer Roads Funding mentioned earlier, in Cowling, it also implemented a series of engineering measures designed to moderate speeds, including installing central refuge islands, Keep Left bollards and Vehicle Activated Signs, as well as a 40mph buffer zone at the western end of the Village.
More widely, in terms of other measures that exist to manage speed, North Yorkshire Police is about to commence a review of its enforcement strategy, which I believe will include the potential for fixed site or average speed cameras. Members will be aware that NYCC and North Yorkshire Police are founding members of the York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership and the County Council has been assured that the Police wish to see a Partnership approach towards the Review’s development and implementation and our input is considered a key element. For our part, the Council will be a willing and active participant in the Review and we are similarly keen to explore the feasibility of safety cameras in North Yorkshire and indeed, to see a timely conclusion to any investigations.
There was no supplementary question.
The Chair thanked Cllr Chris Moorby of Craven District Council for attending the meeting.