Sheffield Council agreed at their last Thursday (2nd Feb) to back a Green Party call for a city-wide 20 mph limit on residential roads. The ruling Liberal Democrat administration was defeated when they tried to block the Greens’ motion.
Green Cllr Rob Murphy said, “We’ve campaigned for a long time to persuade the Council to support our call for a city-wide 20 mph limit on residential streets. We won the argument against the Lib Dems’ policy of passing responsibility onto Community Assemblies, even though these Assemblies don’t have the budgets for widespread 20 mph schemes. We now call on the Lib Dem administration to respect this democratic decision and bring forward plans for a city-wide scheme that will reduce accidents and save lives”.
NOTES :
1. The motion submitted to the Sheffield City Council meeting on February 2 was worded as follows. All sections were passed except G.
This Council:
a. Notes Sheffield suffers annually from over 200 serious road accident casualties.
b. Notes many areas of Sheffield suffer air pollution in excess of EU limits which is believed to contribute to the premature deaths of around 500 residents per year.
c. Notes 20mph zones have been shown to produce a significant fall in the number of casualties when implemented in an area.
d. Notes because of the reduction in acceleration and braking in 20mph limit areas vehicles use approximately 10% less fuel.
e. Notes last years transport budget reduced the spending on 20mph zones from £500 000 to £200 000.
f. Believes the current administration’s decision to split transport spending equally amongst separate Community Assemblies obstructs any strategic moves towards a safe speed limit for residential roads in the city.
g. Believes implementing 20mph speed limit areas on a piecemeal basis is costly, inefficient and less effective.
h. Calls for the Administration to bring forward plans for citywide 20mph limits on residential roads (excluding main roads).
2. The following Lib Dem amendment was defeated :
To amend the above by deleting paragraphs e to h and adding the following paragraph…..
e) notes there was a potential spend of £2,1m on 20mph zones in Community Assemblies’ local highways budgets this year and reaffirms the policy of allowing local councillors and their communities to decide if they want 20 mph zones, rather than imposing them from the Town Hall.