Campaigners are angry at the shelving of plans to bring in 20mph zones in built-up areas around Herefordshire.

Herefordshire 20’s Plenty for Us campaign co-ordinator Professor John Whitelegg said that without this, “residents are exposed to a greater risk of death and injury in road crashes”, and has called on the the county council to press on with the plan.

In making such a change, the county would not be going out on a limb. “Nearly 30 million people in England alone live in authorities like Cornwall, Oxfordshire and Lancashire that now have 20mph in areas where people live,” he said.

RELATED NEWS:

With a lengthy academic career focussing on transport and planning, Professor Whitelegg has also been the Green party’s sustainable development spokesperson and was a councillor in Lancaster.

There he was involved in moves to bring in 20mph zones as far back as 2011, which he says was “sensitively done, with lots of exceptions”.

In March the previous government launched a “crackdown on unfair enforcement and blanket 20mph limits”, following public backlash against such moves.

Labour has now said that such decisions are to be left to English local authorities, while Wales has drawn back from its move last September to bring in 20mph limits across built-up areas, also handing back to councils the power to decide where to bring these in.

What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

But Professor Whitelegg said the Welsh move had proved its value, with 29 per cent fewer road casualties in the first six months after the default 20mph was brought in.

OTHER NEWS:

New leader of the Green group on Herefordshire Council Diana Toynbee said: “We are disappointed about the sidelining of the 20mph zones, when they are so evidently beneficial for residents, air quality and road safety, and when a motion was passed by Herefordshire Council (backing them) in March 2020.”

A council spokesperson confirmed that this county-wide project “has been put on hold due to a review of approach”.

But a second, government-funded project in Hereford “is ongoing, and is being trialled as an advisory 20mph scheme around the schools and colleges around Whittern Way and Folly Lane” in the northeast of the city, they added.