Parish and Town Councils can pass motions supporting 20mph where people live, work and play.  As well as helping your place to achieve a 20mph speed limit, this helps other towns and villages by showing Highways Authority the demand for 20mph county-wide, making it both cheaper and easier to implement across the county.  

The local Highway Authority sets local speed limits, erects signs and changes road features via a Traffic Regulation Order .  Demonstrating widespread local community support is critical to implementing 20mph widely across a county.  Counties, such as Lancashire and Sefton in England, have already agreed 20mph for every settlement, as have counties throughout Wales. Scotland has promised to offer 20mph widely and places like Warrington have 20mph in all their satellite villages.

Anna Semlyen explains in more detail how Parish Councils can go about getingt 20mph for their place:

Background information on 20mph speed limits

1. Accepted as normal by local authorities where 25m people in the UK live, including the whole of Wales and (soon) Scotland. 20mph is global best practice where people mix with motor traffic.
2. Popular: Government and other surveys consistently find 70% support in residential streets which rises after 20mph limits are introduced.
3. Affordable and cost effective, with multiple societal, environmental, economic, and climate benefits.
4. Prioritise quality of life: 20mph helps to create places where human activity, including walking, cycling and social interaction, takes precedence over traffic.
5. Safer: The UK’s Department for Transport estimates that speed a reduction of 1mph in built-up areas reduces casualties by 6%. 20mph schemes typically lead to up to 20% fewer casualties.
6. Better for the environment: 20mph reduces CO2 emissions by 26% and NOx by 28% compared with 30mph and is 50% quieter.
7. Enforceable, like any speed limit.
8. Little impact on journey times: The ‘stop-start’ nature of traffic in built up areas is a much more significant factor. Roads can stay at 30mph where the needs of vulnerable road users are met. Bus journeys and timetables times are generally unaffected.
9. Speed reductions occur, even without regular Police enforcement, to the benefit of all road users. Note: all new car models will have in-car speed limiters from 2022.
10. Few signs needed: 1 or 2 signs on entry and some repeaters to remind drivers and no need for physical calming.
11. Sustainable: Ties in closely with other policies to address climate change, improve air quality and enable more people to walk and cycle – especially for short journeys.

 Signed schemes and public engagement are cost-effective and offer seven times better value for money than heavily-engineered schemes.

Parish and Town Council briefing PDF

Parish and Town Council briefing Word doc