This is a reader's letter published in the Hereford Times on November 28.

IMAGINE you are the leading politician running Herefordshire.

In front of you there is a scheme, approved by the whole council in 2020, that will save society money, prevent people being killed and injured, make your residential areas more liveable and reduce car insurance premiums.

It is also backed by multiple scientific studies, by your blue light services and NHS hospitals.

I refer, of course, to 20mph limits where people live. In spite of the manufactured outrage which met implementation of the policy in Wales a year ago, deaths on affected roads are down 35 per cent, serious injuries 14.2 per cent and slight injuries 31 per cent. Never mind the human cost, the societal cost of a serious injury is estimated by the DfT to be £271,000.

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In an email that politician wrote to Professor John Whitelegg, the international authority on sustainable transport, on November 19, we learn that Herefordshire Council will now only consider ‘some advisory 20mph zones around specific schools’.

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

Preventing deaths and injuries among children, or indeed any of us, where we actually live, is apparently no longer a priority for Herefordshire Council. The e-mail goes on to say that it will consider safety improvements only on rural roads and ‘where we have the highest incidents (sic) of killed and seriously injured’.

So there you have it. Herefordshire Council won’t act to enhance road safety in your community by thus addressing speeding; and outside of it only when enough people have been killed or seriously injured.

COUNCILLOR JEREMY MILLN

City councillor, Central Ward