Yet Another Plea For 20mph Safety Limit at All Surrey Schools

Published on: 8 Jul, 2019
Updated on: 8 Jul, 2019

By Rebecca Curley

local democracy reporter

The Lib Dem borough councillor for Westborough, also Surrey County Council (SCC) member for Guildford West, was discussing a petition for a speed limit cut at St Lawrence Primary School in Effingham.

Cllr White, told the GBC and SCC joint committee on Wednesday (July 3) that she had seen many petitions calling for safety measures outside schools.

“Most include a request for a reduction in speed limit to 20mph,” she said. “I think the best way of doing this enforcing it and getting recognition from drivers would be if the county council was to adopt a policy of 20mph outside all schools.”

Cllr Fiona White

She said parents all over the county have fears for the safety of their children. Cllr White added: “These things come back to us time and time again. And I think it’s about time the county council had a look at its speeding policy outside schools.

“If there was a speed limit of 20mph outside every school, every driver would know what it was and would have to take the consequences if they were caught speeding.”

There are two petitions open on SCC’s website calling for 20mph or safer crossing measures outside schools, and seven more have been presented to the county council since the start of this year.

A speed survey at St Lawrence Primary showed speeds were “excessive” to the 30mph limit as drivers came from a 40mph section.

SCC road safety manager Duncan Knox said that for St Lawrence reducing the speed limit to 20mph would have “minimal effect”, adding: “What makes the difference are the proposed engineering measures to slow vehicles.”

The national guidance and the county council’s policy was that a change in speed limit should take more than 600 metres to reduce the amount of limit changes for a driver, he said.

Committee chairman Cllr Keith Taylor said: “We would like to believe we are a law-abiding society, but unfortunately all sorts of studies have indicated that simply crossing out a three and changing it to a two and expecting a dramatic result doesn’t seem to work.”