Kent County Times

Kent Greens pledge to fight on for county-wide 20mph zones

The Kent Green Party has written to the highways authority, Kent County Council, urging them to adopt the lower speed limit.

It comes after a three-year campaign petitioning town centres across the county found that more than 90 per cent of people supported the change.

Steve Dawe, the party’s spokesman who lives Tonbridge, said: “We want to see KCC prevent accidents, injuries and deaths instead of waiting to have policy dictated by the number of people injured, maimed or killed.

“Given the very low cost of this initiative and the fact that motorists themselves are to a high degree self-policing in existing 30 mph areas which often lack signage, we see no reason to obstruct a general extension of 20 mph zones.”

KCC has said in the past that it is against county-wide 20mph zones. But the County Hall refused to comment this week on its current position.

Mr Dawe said the party would be petitioning for 20mph zones in Sevenoaks on August 20, adding: “This is going to continue until we get a result.”

KCC’s website states: “We put 20mph zones in areas where there is a history of crashes involving child pedestrians or cyclists.”

This newspaper asked KCC how many crashes involving children and/or cyclists had to happen before 20mph zones were adopted. But the authority refused to respond.

Green Party chair Dr Hazel Dawe said: We have now written to the county council, the Medway unitary authority and all other local authorities in Kent to ask them to adopt 20 mph limits in residential areas.

“A survey of the introduction of 20mph zones across the UK and in other European countries found that child road accidents declined by 67 per cent, cyclist accidents by 29 per cent and traffic flow by 27 per cent.

“The leading cause of death to children over the age of five is road crashes. A child pedestrian is three times more likely to die on our roads than in Italy and twice as likely as in France.

“The number of cyclists killed has risen by 30 per cent since 2003.

”We will continue to campaign for 20 mph limits in residential areas until the local authorities in Kent and Medway all adopt this approach.”

In Tunbridge Wells, 20mph zones also have the support of the borough council’s portfolio holder for transport, Brian Ransley.

He said the new Tunbridge Wells Transport Forum, which holds its first meeting in September, would provide an opportunity for councillors and residents to bring forward suggestions such as lower speed limits.

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