Nichola Harrison

The County Council’s Lib Dems continue to campaign over rules governing the introduction of 20mph limits. As previously reported, Nichola led a challenge against a Council decision not to allow 20mph speed limits to be introduced on roads where the existing average speed is above 20mph. The new rule means that a street with existing average speeds of just 21mph cannot qualify for a 20mph limit.

The policy goes against government guidance, which explicitly states that 20mph limits may be imposed on roads where the average speed is 24mph or less.

When challenged at the July Council meeting to explain why the Council’s Conservative leadership has ignored government guidance, Cabinet member Cllr McGuire said that it was for reasons of “numerical consistency” with guidance relating to 30mph and 40mph limits.

Nichola has argued that Cllr McGuire’s argument overlooks an important difference between roads which are candidates for 20mph speed limits and all others. The former are almost always in densely populated areas which are heavily used by vulnerable groups such as pedestrians, cyclists and schoolchildren. Only 5% of accidents at 20mph are fatal, compared to 50% at 30mph, and growing evidence shows that reducing speeds by even a few mph reduces accident numbers significantly (up to 6% reduction in accidents for every 1mph reduction in speed). This is why the government has treated 20mph limits differently from the rest.

In Nichola’s view, “Many streets in places like Petersfield could benefit from 20mph speed limits and I will continue to fight for a sensible policy on this. Talk of “numerical consistency” is tidy-mindedness gone mad, especially when the death rate on Cambridgeshire’s roads increased by 23% last year.”