Villagers need protection from speeding traffic. Rural through-route traffic is often heavy and excessively fast without urban congestion. Country streets can have narrow or no pavements, even when doors lead straight to a road. Getting safely to shops and schools at village edges is crucial.  Many villages, even with ‘A’ roads, have successfully been 20mph limited.

Although cities like Portsmouth, Oxford and Newcastle have led the UK’s 20mph signed only limit implementations, being hit by fast traffic affects people wherever it happens.  Fear of road danger, the size and volume of heavy vehicles and speed of through traffic in villages is blighting lives.  No wonder that Parish Councils often rate road safety and 20mph as very high priorities.  

Some people actively chose country living believing it will mean reduced congestion, cleaner air, quiet and a sense of community, as well as cheaper property.  However some rural routes are heavily trafficked. There is less public transport, so car dependency is high due to reduced proximity to jobs and amenities.

Fortunately 20mph limits are increasingly coming to villages. From February 2011 to June 2012, twenty five 20mph limits were implemented in towns and villages across the East Riding of Yorkshire. Beverley, Bridlington, Goole, Driffield, Hessle and Hedon are examples. Limpley Stoke is one of five Wiltshire villages where temporary limits were agreed in 2010 following a determined, visible 20’s Plenty for Us campaign.  A decision on permanent limits is awaited. Suffolk are turning Middleton cum Fordley and Fressingfield 20mph. Fressingfield Parish Council specifically requested this of their local Councillor and Lead Transport Member.  20mph limits will be installed in Dunbar, East Lothian.

City of York Council plans to limit its larger satellite villages - Bishopthorpe, Copmanthorpe, Upper Poppleton, Dunnington, Haxby and Strensall - thereby extending 20mph beyond the outer ring road.

Local councillors are spending their devolved to their decision making local improvement funds on limits. This has happened in Tregony, Cornwall and Otley in Leeds for example. 

Even parts of the strategic road network - ‘A’ roads - can go 20mph without humps, to enhance road safety. 20mph limited ‘A’ roads include the A61 through the centre of Thirsk, the A307 through Petersham in Richmond upon Thames[1], amongst others. 

Village implementations of 20mph limits tend to have a higher cost per head than in towns due to fixed costs like Traffic Regulation Orders. Yet are still very affordable at about £4 per head.
 

Anyone wanting help to make their neighbourhood into a 20mph limit can contact us for free support.  As well as writing to Councillors and gaining petition signatures, many of our village campaigns have found that selling “wheelie bin” stickers has helped to make the fact that people actively want 20mph limits visible to local politicians and other residents.

20’s Plenty where people live, work, shop or play - whether a village, town or city.

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