Agenda item

Joint report of the Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services and the Principal Democratic Services Officer

Purpose: To provide information to inform a discussion by the Committee.

Considered: A statement from 20’s Plenty for North Yorkshire Harrogate, and a joint report of the Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services and the Principal Democratic Services Officer concerning 20mph speed limits.

Note: During discussion, County Councillor Pat Marsh declared an interest on the grounds that she and her late husband, 15 years previously, had asked the County Council to implement 20mph speed limits.

Malcolm Margolis BEM, on behalf of 20’s Plenty for North Yorkshire Harrogate, made the following statement:-

“20s Plenty is asking your committee to support making 20mph the default speed limit in towns and villages in this constituency as the first step to implementing default 20mph throughout North Yorkshire. This is in order to: (1) achieve a 20mph speed limit on roads which are currently 30mph, with exceptions where a higher speed limit is demonstrably safe, particularly for vulnerable road users, and (2) demonstrate to the Highways Authority the demand for 20mph county-wide, making it both cheaper and easier to implement across the county and achieving better driver compliance.

Speed limits are set by the County Council as the Highway Authority.  Demonstrating widespread community support is critical to securing the County’s agreement to implement 20mph widely.

28 million people in the UK live in areas where the highway authority supports 20mph.  Counties such as Oxfordshire and Lancashire in England, have agreed 20mph for every settlement, as has Wales.  Scotland has decided to offer 20mph widely and places like Warrington have 20mph in all their satellite villages.  Well over 100 North Yorkshire parish councils have voted for default 20mph.

20mph is popular.  Government and other surveys consistently find 70% support in residential streets which rises after 20mph limits are introduced.  20mph saves lives, reduces severity of injuries, CO2 and NOX emissions, improves quality of life, is quieter, very cost effective, costing £3-£5 person with payback in a few months thanks to fewer casualties.  It means fewer potholes, a major cost saving, and is sustainable, encouraging more people to walk and cycle.  It has little impact on journey times.  It is enforceable like any speed limit.  Valuable speed reductions occur, even without regular police enforcement.  The DfT says for every 1% reduction in average speed there are 6% fewer accidents.  Making 20mph the norm does not require humps and chicanes.  Signed schemes and public engagement offer seven times better value for money than heavily-engineered schemes.

20mph zones around schools only, achieve little or nothing.  80% of road accidents involving children are not on school journeys.  People need to be able to walk and cycle safely from home to school, friends, relatives, play areas and other destinations.

The 30mph limit was introduced in 1935 to tackle a spate of road casualties.  I hope you agree it is no longer fit for purpose.  For the many social, environmental and economic benefits described above, please support default 20mph to make our communities safer and better places to live. Thank you.”

Allan McVeigh (Head of Network Strategy) responded, as follows, to the statement from Malcolm Margolis:-

“The County Council recognises the benefits which 20mph speed limits can bring and the revised 20mph policy acknowledges the role they can play in improving the sense of place, community and local environment.  In so doing, the policy, approved by the Council’s Executive earlier this year introduce a revised process that allows for the consideration of more qualitative and not just quantitative assessment criteria, against which to determine 20mph speed limit requests, including for example links to other active travel initiatives and the potential for 20mph speed limits and zones to make routes potentially safer, more accessible and encourage greater active travel uptake.

The Policy though also recognises the importance of complying with existing national guidance on the subject and taking each case on its own merits, including the Department for Transport Circular 01/2013, which provides the framework for local (highway) authorities when setting local speed limits. North Yorkshire Police also adhere to the guidance and as they are responsible for enforcement too, it is important that we work in partnership with them and seek their support for any proposed changes in speed limits.  North Yorkshire Police has confirmed in the review that led to the revised 20mph policy that they do not support the countywide default application of 20mph speed limits.

The economic and social cost of fatal and serious collisions are well understood and the Council already spends a significant amount of effort and resources in treating known collision sites, which are more a problem on the high speed rural network than elsewhere.  The Council also needs to consider how the application of 20mph speed limits across wide areas may influence journey times and the performance of its network for all road users. 

A 20mph speed limit or zone should be appropriate for that part of the network. Importantly, it must also be self-enforcing.  Introducing a 20mph speed limit or zone to a road(s) where drivers do not already generally conform to lower speeds, will likely result in poor speed limit compliance and consequently, understandable local complaints and community expectations of police enforcement.

It is possible to achieve 20mph speeds through signing and road markings alone, on roads with an average speed of 24mph or less.  Where speeds are in excess of 24mph, it is necessary to introduce physical traffic calming measures in order to engineer a reduction in speed, eg through chicanes, speed cushions, speed tables etc.

Please be assured that the County Council is committed to making the network as safe and accessible as possible for all road users and will continue to engage with local communities to consider what options and alternatives may exist to allay road safety concerns and improve the sense of place and community.”

County Councillor Arnold Warneken moved, and County Councillor Mike Schofield seconded, a motion which, during discussion, they agreed to amend to “That the Executive be advised that the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Constituency Committee wishes a 20mph speed limit to be piloted throughout towns and villages in the constituency area where a need has been identified, and that the Executive be asked to recommend the Transport, Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee, when it considers the County Council’s 20mph Speed Limit and Zone Policy on 19 January 2023, to consider appropriate amendments to the existing policy to enable such a pilot to be introduced”.

The Committee debated the motion. 

Key points made by Members who supported the motion were:-

·       20mph limits would:- improve the environment, air quality and the well-being of residents; reduce traffic by getting more people to walk and cycle safely;  support a modal shift, which was a key objective of the existing policy.

·       More evidence was now available to show that traffic pollution potentially caused cancers.  Particulates were a key issue in changing speed between 20mph and 30mph.

·       A 20mph limit was needed throughout a journey, rather than only around a school.

·       The new Maltkiln development would be exemplar in terms of active travel but this would be “useless” if cycling was less user-friendly at the Maltkiln boundary marked on the planning application.

·       The current policy was self-fulfilling, ie by considering requests on a case-by-case basis, and there needed to be a culture change.  The existing policy was from a different era and needed to be challenged.  (Allan McVeigh responded that, since the current policy was introduced with a dedicated budget for 20mph schemes, multiple applications for 20mph limits had been requested and some had already been successful.  This was quite different compared to prior to January 2022.)

·       20mph should be introduced now rather than in 20 or 40 years’ time.

·       The benefits for pedestrians and cyclists, of having 20mph limits, needed to be treated with greater importance.

·       Many parish councils within the Harrogate Borough Council area had said they wanted 20mph limits in their parishes.

In response to a question about costs, Allan McVeigh advised that the introduction of 20mph across the Harrogate and Knaresborough area, was likely to cost more than £1million and would take 12-18 months for options testing, surveys and analysis, assuming that various tasks were run concurrently.

Enforcement of 20mph limits was discussed and Members expressed various opinions, namely:-

·       A Member suggested that enforcement was a “smokescreen” which should not be allowed to stand in the way of doing the right thing.

·       Another Member commented that it was important to bring the Police on-board because, if there were no consequences, the limit would be ignored.

·       Another Member said that speed cameras should be used to enforce speed limits until behaviours changed. 

Allan McVeigh reported that “signed only” limits had the expectation that people would abide by that reduced speed limit and therefore, attached to any pilot, trial or implementation, it was really important to have a publicity/behavioural-change campaign.  There would be cost to have such a campaign. 

With regard to the need for engineering measures to support 20mph limits, Allan McVeigh advised that it was important to look at the data and evidence base regarding speed limits.  For this reason, the Government, in 2017, had commissioned Atkins and another major consultant, to look at this in detail.  Allan McVeigh suggested that, if there had been such a compelling case for signed-only limits, the DFT would have looked to potentially change its existing speed limit guidance.  However, it had not done so.  The DFT still said that, for locations where there were speeds in excess of 24mph, in order to ensure those speeds came down, some sort of physical horizontal or vertical features were required.   The study also concluded that signed-only limits typically reduced speeds by less than 1mph, depending on the location.  Therefore, there was no significant impact in having a signed-only limit.  This was the reason why there was still a reliance on engineering, coupled with the advice in LTN120 which said that, to ensure speeds were reduced, such limits should be linked to physical features. 

Key points made by a Member who did not support the motion were:-

·       Existing 20mph limits with only “signs and lines” did not necessarily result in reduced traffic speeds.  It therefore came down to the same arguments of enforcement and capital spend.

·       The Member was reluctant to ask for anything which would have a revenue spend because there were items relating to his Division that Highways needed to look at, which had been requested a long, long time previously, but there had been no money to get them done.  The Member wanted money spending to remedy those items first.

·       The motion put to the meeting had been contradicted by supporting statements made by Members who supported it, namely, the motion referred to 20mph speed limit being piloted throughout “towns and villages” but Members who supported the motion had referred to a 20mph limit at Maltkiln being “useless” beyond the Maltkiln boundary.  The Member suggested that, in any event, the whole area would need to be reviewed to determine where the ‘red line’ for a 20mph limit was, and there would be a cost associated with carrying out such a review.

Most Members who expressed an opinion supported asking the TEE Overview and Scrutiny Committee to approach Oxfordshire and Lancashire to ask them how 20mph limits were going.  Another Member suggested also asking Leeds City Council about their 20mph limit in Otley.  Allan McVeigh reported that the 2021 Scrutiny review of the 20mph policy had looked at the examples in Oxfordshire and Lancashire and other locations, although there was an opportunity to look at that again, recognising the passage of time.

There was discussion about the words “where a need has been identified” within the phrase within the motion “… 20mph speed limit to be piloted throughout towns and villages in the constituency area where a need has been identified …”.   The mover of the motion was asked whether there was a framework for identifying “a need”.  The mover responded that there were expert officers who went through the process of identifying whether a need existed and that he would work with them, if this pilot went through, to assist that process. 

Resolved –

That the Executive be advised that the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Constituency Committee wishes a 20mph speed limit to be piloted throughout towns and villages in the constituency area where a need has been identified, and that the Executive be asked to recommend the Transport, Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee, when it considers the County Council’s 20mph Speed Limit and Zone Policy on 19 January 2023, to consider appropriate amendments to the existing policy to enable such a pilot to be introduced.