A consultation on a proposal by Hammersmith and Fulham Council to introduce a borough-wide 20mph speed limit has been rejected by residents. 45 per cent backed it with 55 per cent opposed. There were 5,287 responses which is a relatively high turnout.
Cllr Steve Hamilton set out the reasons for the Conservative Group’s opposition here.
Local resident Brian Mooney campaigned against the plan. He gave his reasons here and here. The taxi drivers warned against it.
The police have made clear they would not enforce the limit so car drivers could ignore it although TfL claim bus drivers would follow it meaning further delays in public transport.
If the council was to enforce the speed limit by placing humps throughout the borough (at phenomenal expense) that would cost more lives than it would save due to the adverse impact on ambulance response times and air quality.
Also nearly twice as many residents responding to the consultation specified they were against humps – 922 – as those who supported them, just over 500.
These results need to be considered in the context of a huge propaganda drive by the Council seeking to persuade people to back their barmy plans.
So will Labour listen to residents? Or carry on regardless with their flawed scheme? Astonishingly they seem inclined to proceed. They could point out it was in their manifesto. That document did indeed call for a 20 mph speed limit throughout the borough except trunk roads (the A4 and the A40). However their claim that they have a mandate as a result would count for rather more if they had circulated their manifesto before the council elections, held on May 22nd last year, took place. Rather unusually it was a post-election manifesto.
Hammersmith and Fulham Forum 
“…that would cost more lives than it would save due to the adverse impact on ambulance response times and air quality.”
I would strongly dispute this – the chances of dying or being seriously injured when hit by a car traveling at 20mph are drastically reduced from being hit at 30mph. However if you could provide the statistical evidence backing up your claim above i would be interested in reviewing it.
Interestingly I also note that TfL are looking at introducing this limit on some of the most dangerous roads right across London so I’m not sure why it would be considered ‘barmy’.
The reality is that despite the propaganda blitz (paid for out of money extracted from H&F people through their council tax precept), residents rejected the council’s drastic proposal by 55% to 45%.
To save face, the council is having to count those who just ticked ‘Some roads’ in the consultation as supporting “most or all roads”. Someone might support an experimental part-time 20 limit outside schools, for instance, or not call for an existing 20 zone to be converted back to 30mph due to the costs involved, but it is totally wrong to hype their response.
This is the same council who promised to be fairer to motorists in their magical manifesto that slipped out only after the postal votes had been received. It ill behoves them to moan about government cuts when they are prepared to waste at least £500,000 on a scheme that will deliver minimal benefit and probably cost lots more if a blight of speed humps is imposed.
This consulatation exercise has been a disgrace. Instead of a careful and even-handed attempt to investigate a situation, the questions and reponses have been manipulated to produce the sought-for political outcome. Support for 20mph on some roads (perfectly sensible) is very different to support for a borough-wide 20mph limit (silly anti-car gesturalism), yet the council is determined to conflate the two groups. It was pretty obvious even reading the questionniare that this would happen. Well, at least the borough-wide 20mph has been decisively rejected.