After all the work getting Church Lane’s speed limit in place and approved, and putting up the signs, you’d think the trees could have been cut back so that people could actually see them!
Peter Mason is on the case. I’ve also reported it at FixMyStreet and the County Council website.
Peter has also requested a flashing sign to help clearly establish the new speed limit in the mind of regular users of Church Lane.
I’ve just watched the ‘Location, Location, Location’ programme about the ten best places to live in Britain – and Winchester has dropped to number two behind Edinburgh.
However, we’re still the best place to live in England so I guess we shouldn’t feel too down!
I watched the show and we lost points for our carbon emissions and our road safety – two areas we’ve been campaigning on for quite some time.
Aside from our national commitments to a zero carbon Britain, I’ve already offered my time to Winchester Action on Climate Change and will be continuing with our campaign for proper 20 mph speed limits outside schools and in residential areas that want them.
I must confess to being pretty baffled by the Conservatives’ latest plans to try and slow down traffic outside schools.
They’ve now issued application packs to local schools in which they ask schools to pay for, or spend time raising sponsorship money for, ‘advisory’ 20 mph signs featuring a cartoon snail, rather than a speed limit warning, outside schools
Everyone I’ve spoken too about having a 20 mph speed outside schools wants an enforceable limit, not a cartoon snail. And they certainly don’t want the money to pay for them to be taken from schools when it could be spent on education.
These signs should be properly funded from the roads budget. And they should be designed to get the message across to drivers, not to appeal to children.
Southampton City Council is already imposing 20mph limits outside all schools and Portsmouth City Council’s scheme will do the same on most residential roads.
A recent Audit Commission report shows that Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world for adults – but not for children. A child pedestrian in England is three times more likely to die on our roads than in Italy and twice as likely as in France.
We’ve been getting a great response to our campaign for ’20s plenty’ right across the constituency. It makes sense in many residential streets in urban areas, especially outside schools. As you can see below, we’ve already been campaigning on it in Chandler’s Ford (with Sandra Gidley), Harestock, St Bartholomew’s and St John’s.
We’ve also been campaigning on it in St Luke – and Mark and I will be doing some further campaigning about speeding in Stanmore later in the month. Please let me know if there are any streets or lanes near you that you think would benefit from a 20 mph limit.
After three back-to-back meetings in Westminster, down to Winchester to a full meeting of the city council.
It was particularly interesting to see the Tories tieing themselves in knots about establishment of 20 mph traffic zones. 
While most of those that spoke appeared to be in favour of these (although some , while sounding positive, appeared to want to push them into bureaucratic long grass), it turned out that the biggest obstacle to their introduction was…. the Conservative administration of Hampshire County Council. The introduction of Homezones and 20 mph speed limits in residential areas turn out to be yet another area where the Conservatives running the county council are not listening to local people – not even their own local people!
I’ve been a big fan of Home Zones since I saw them in action when living in Germany in the 1990s. One of the country’s first home zones, the Five Roads Home Zone, was just outside the constituency I fought in 2001. They’re safer for children, better for the environment and rebalance the roads more in favour of pedestrians and cyclists. While obviously they shouldn’t be introduced without the support of local people, where there is that support, I’d like to see them introduced as widely and quickly as possible.
The other item of interest was the appointment of Cllr. Wood to take over the planning portfolio on the cabinet following the high profile resignation of Cllr. Lipscomb.
What was striking here was the desire of those present (both Conservative and Liberal Democrat) to be able to ask a series of questions of Cllr. Wood about his background and experience, but the inability of the standing orders to allow them to do so.
It struck me that this might be a suitable opportunity for US-style public confirmation hearings – perhaps organised via the scrutiny committee?
I would like see a greater role for confirmation hearings in both local and national government. It’s a greater need in national government where the link between quangos and the public often appears weaker than the link between quangos and their associated minister. My view of quangos for some time is that they should either be abolished, or elected, or the people on them confirmed in public hearings. The current situation where they are appointed by ministers with relatively little scrutiny is not adequate for a modern democratic society.