Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice (to include the text of the question/statement) to Will Baines, Principal Democratic Services and Scrutiny Officer (contact details below) no later than midday on Monday 15 January 2024. 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 Chair who will instruct those taking a recording to cease while you speak.
Minutes:
One public statement had been submitted prior to the committee from Mr Ian Conlan:
Concerning Agenda item 5, on including the DfT guidance in your 20mph policy: ‘’Traffic authorities can introduce 20mph speed limits on major streets where there are - or could be - significant numbers of journeys on foot/cycle, and this outweighs the disadvantage of longer journey times on the motorist.
In Malton and Norton, just one major NW to SE route, B1257 Broughton Rd to B1248 Beverly Road through Butcher Corner, is responsible for half, or 30 out the 60 casualties in Malton and Norton urban area over the last 5 years, including 1 fatality 6 serious injuries and 23 minor injuries, many of them pedestrians, child cyclists, elderly residents. Most casualties are on this or other main roads, many of them at junctions.
The decisions based on the current policy demonstrate that there is such extreme reluctance to bring in 20mph on main roads as to make it impossible. This policy in practice treats pedestrians and cyclists as second class citizens in their own communities, and takes a Victorian approach to danger, ie profit before safety. But doing nothing effective about road safety costs society more in the long run.
Removing onerous conditions such as has occurred in Cornwall and elsewhere is essential in order to make any significant and lasting improvements in road safety. Hiding behind a restrictive interpretation of DfT guidance should fool no one.
Will councillors select to instead agree to the Action Vision Zero Target of zero killed and seriously injured on our roads by 2030 in this committee, with an intermediate target of 50% reduction in killed and seriously injured by 2027.
With the new Mayor for York and North Yorkshire holding significant power and funds on Transport policy and direction, it is essential that North Yorkshire speak up on road safety, and actually listen to the most vulnerable residents: 77 out 99 residents who returned surveys in Malton backed the Town Council's position on making 20mph the normal speed limit for the town.
Allan McVeigh, Head of Network Strategy responded as follows:
The North Yorkshire Council 20mph speed limit and zone policy that Mr Conlan refers to, is progressive and a significant step forward from its earlier iteration. The Council's Executive approved changes to a revised policy in 2022, which have resulted in 37 20mph scheme applications having since been received, with nine schemes approved from 12 that have been through the full review process; one of which being unprecedented in scale covering the Pannal Ash and Oatlands areas of Harrogate. This scheme does include Category 3A and 3B roads, which can be described as major streets. The policy revision and indeed a more recent report, approved by the Council's Executive in July last year, will also result in the introduction of a planned programme of speed limit reviews across the urban and rural road network, including major streets and is actually prioritising the vulnerable road users referred to by Mr Conlan.
The 20mph speed limit and zone policy already makes reference to acting in accordance with the DfT Circular 01/2013 and the York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership Safer Roads Strategy refers to road safety partners, including North Yorkshire Council, working towards Vision Zero.
A review of speed surveys on the B1257 and B1248 through Malton and Norton shows speeds are already low with ranges between 17 and 25mph within the town, the majority being at or just below 20mph, which suggests there is not a problem with speed compliance on these roads.
We note the collision statistics referred to by Mr Conlon, which are consistent with the data held by the council. North Yorkshire Council undertakes annual and in-year analysis of collision data to identify the sites and routes with the poorest collision record in terms of number and severity of collisions. It is though essential to look at context and causation factors to identify any trends and patterns that can be mitigated through intervention.
I would seek to assure Mr Conlan that there is no reluctance to introduce 20mph speed limits on main roads, where it is considered to be suitable to do so, as evidenced by the proposed introduction of lower speed limits on major streets in Harrogate. There are many different criteria to consider through the assessment process and the Council’s policy is explicit in recognising the need to move away from solely using collision and speed data and recognising the benefits that lower speed limits can bring to communities, and modal shift is a key objective.
As a supplementary question Mr Conlan asked:
That said, how do you explain your decisions, for instance, in Langton and Welburn which concern one main road running through each village. I think there is an inconsistency and an unwillingness to actually embrace a default 20mph speed limit.
In response, it was noted that DfT Circular 01/2013 states that councils can consider introducing 20mph speed limits on main streets, where we consider it appropriate to do so, and in areas where we don’t, then those proposals are not taken forwards. In terms of the perceived unwillingness to introduce 20mph schemes in North Yorkshire, the 20mph Speed Limit and Zone policy has been to the Executive, it was called in and considered by this committee. But it is not the policy of North Yorkshire Council to introduce default 20mph schemes. What it does do is it takes a proactive approach working with communities, and where there is support locally, and the council considers a 20mph scheme to be consistent with our policy, then it absolutely does look to implement those.
It was also added that in terms of January 2022 when North Yorkshire Council introduced the revised 20mph Speed Limit and Zone policy approach, there was a lot of criticism then that the policy would create additional barriers to the creation of future 20mph speed limit zones in North Yorkshire. It was felt by the officer that it has actually done the reverse, with a significant increase in the number of requests that have been received and as a result of that, a significant increase in the number of 20mph speed limit schemes that have been approved.