By Jenni Davidson
Central Brighton and Hove is to get a 20mph speed limit from April next year.
The 20mph zone will run from Sackville Road in the west to Freshfield Road in the east and north as far as Old Shoreham Road.
Only the seafront, Old Shoreham Road and Sackville Road will be excluded from the speed restriction.
Councillors approved the measure at a meeting of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Transport Committee on Tuesday (27 November).
If the change is successful, the council plans to extend the scheme across the rest of Brighton and Hove.
A 20mph speed limit has already been piloted around Portslade Old Village and Stanford Infant and Junior Schools.
The decision follows a public consultation in which 55 per cent of the 3,689 people who took part were in favour of the lower speed limit.
The aim of the scheme is not only to cut road accidents but also to encourage people to walk and cycle by making streets safer and more pleasant.
In a presentation to the committee, transport planner Emma Sheridan said that the change would not significantly increase journey times.
She explained that about 70 per cent of travel time in the city centre was spent waiting at traffic lights and junctions, so a slower speed limit would add only a few minutes to a journey.
She added that the difference could be offset by easier merging at junctions when traffic was moving more slowly.
The move has support from all three political parties on the council, although they disagreed on some of the details.
Geoffrey Theobald, Conservative group leader, abstained from the vote because he believed that too many main roads had been included.
Labour group leader Gill Mitchell voted for the measure but pointed out that council’s scrutiny committee had recommended that it only be introduced in residential areas.
She also expressed concern about the possible effect on buses and taxis and whether the police would be able to enforce the speed restriction.
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Adam Campbell,
Totally agree – the “trial” that has been implemented in Portslade was a total shambles – almost all traffic (including buses, taxis, and council vehicles) have been ignoring the limits as the green council just assumed that traffic would obey the limits. There have been no active policing of the limits; no traffic calming introduced; and the signage that has been introduced has been laughable – including road markings (white writing on a blue background) that imply that 20 mph is the minimum speed limit.
Whilst the objective of having a lower speed limit to save accidents and encourage bus and cycling sounds excellent the actual costs of implementing it properly have been ignored and the whole £1.5 million pound scheme introduced on the “hope” of encouraging walking, and increasing bus and cycle usage. Do we now implement projects in Brighton & Hove based purely on “hope”?
I must admit I was disappointed that the non-green councillors didn’t vote against this scheme when they had the chance – rather than voting in favour or abstaining.
How will the project be measured to determine if it is a success; and if it is not – whose head will be on the block for wasting money?
At least we can hope that as a result of the new “council approved” plan that the limits introduced in Portslade are removed as they are not in the defined area – perhaps leaving 20 mph zones where they are really needed – perhaps just around schools.
This is similar to the “genius” Solar powered Volk’s Railway to be introduced by the Greens where it will cost another £1.5m to save £6k per year – in other words a “green” saving that takes 250 years to recuperate.
As Jason Kitkat states “If we are successful it will be the perfect example of what Brighton can do. It’s a massively exciting scheme.” – I wonder how Jason will define this as being “successful”?
It does seem that the Greens have no idea about economics and just blindly push “green” solutions with no thought of the economic aspect at all – “if it is green it must be good”.
I hope that all the non-green councillors do band together to get these idiots out of power.
fantastic move. we can enforce it ourselves by keeping to the lower limit and forcing idiots to slow down to the speed limit.