Objections prompt Cambs to scrap 20mph village speed limit trial

Cambridgeshire County Council is pressing ahead with trials of signed-only 20mph speed limits  but has dropped plans for a pilot in South Cambridgeshire because of local opposition.

Councillors last week approved plans for a trial in St Ives town centre and next week are expected to approve plans for a 20mph limit across the core area of Cambridge as well as in the Wulfstan Way residential area of the city and in the village of Soham, East Cambridgeshire.

But the county this week abandoned plans to implement a 20mph limit in South Cambridgeshire district after the local parish council refused to support the plan. Melbourn is the second parish council in South Cambridgeshire to reject the county council’s proposals.

Cambridgeshire originally identified the village of Girton as its preferred location but abandoned this after the parish council said it didn’t believe signed-only limits would have any noticeable effect on driver behaviour.

The county subsequently selected Melbourn as an alternative site for a trial. But this week South Cambridgeshire’s joint committee chose to abandon these plans following an unprecedented number of objections from villagers.

Cambridgeshire received 101 objections to the draft speed limit order with comments such as speeding wasn’t a problem, accident levels didn’t justify a lower limit, the existing 30mph limit was appropriate, and that the scheme was a waste of public money.

“I can’t recall ever doing a speed order where we’ve had this level of objection,” Cambridgeshire’s project engineer Karen Lunn told LTT.

The county council said the Melbourn scheme was not an accident remedial measure. “It is about changing driver culture and encouraging drivers to adopt a different attitude to driving in residential areas,” said officers in response to the public criticisms.

The parish council said its support for the 20mph limit would be conditional on the county council introducing a 30mph speed limit ‘buffer zone’ in the countryside on either side of the village and installing speed limit countdown marker signs in advance of the 30mph limit. But Lunn told LTT that the first measure would go against the county’s speed limit policy and that countdown marker signs would require DfT approval, which would not be forthcoming because there was no problem with forward visibility of the village speed limit signs.

“We were reluctant to proceed with the project – we need local buy-in,” said Lunn.

Cambridgeshire last year approved plans to trial signed-only 20mph speed limits in five areas of the county where existing speed limits are 24mph or less.

The county’s decision was influenced by the growing interest in signed-only 20mph speed limits, with area-wide schemes implemented in places such as Portsmouth, Newcastle and Oxford.

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