Wiltshire Council’s annual roads budget is £45m but Smith couldn’t say precisely how much is spent on road safety. “I do know it’s not cheap,” he said. “People see new speed signs and wonder how they can cost £10,000 but there’s a technical speed assessment to pay for plus the cost of consulting residents and then the traffic regulation order that makes the new speed limit lawful. I am keen to reduce this cost and the red tape around changes to speed limits. Other councils including Oxford City and Cornwall are doing so and we should too.”
Smith declined to comment on the proposal by police chiefs that fi nes revenue from speed cameras should be spent on road safety schemes rather than going to the Treasury. However, he said that collaboration with the region’s police chiefs on road safety is improving. “They are now more interested in road safety from the perspective of local communities,” he said.
Calls for more 20mph zones
Responding to the latest road casualty figures, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has called for the government’s upcoming National Road Safety Strategy to include the expansion of 20mph zones in residential areas and roads near schools.
The previous Conservative government pledged to crack down on what it called antidriver road schemes, including blanket 20mph speed limits. Last year, Louise Haigh, the current government’s then transport secretary, appeared to support that view when she insisted that 20mph schemes must have the support of local communities and should not be imposed by government.
In July last year, Southampton City Council changed the limit from 20mph to 30mph on a number of city centre roads, reversing changes made by the previous Labour council.
Councillor Jeremy Moulton, a former Southampton city council leader, told Autocar: “These roads should never have been reduced to 20mph in the first place. This is a small step forward for common sense.”
Despite these policy rollbacks, the council said it will continue to introduce 20mph limits where residents demand them.